Transpoesie - Poets

Work is the White Man's curse. Hundreds of years of niggardly Lutheranism hand-in-hand with an almost unbearable climate drive one to drafting briefs and memos in a Northern European office. Bow down to the Great Mammon!
Studies: Tartu Miina Härma Gymnasium and Tartu Children's Art School. Estonian Academy of Arts, product design and Oslo National Academy of the Arts, interior design.
Bread: illustrator and designer, partner and creative director at advertising agency Rakett. A number of Estonian Marketing Achievement awards, Golden Egg awards and design awards. "Best Estonian Book Art" awards and "Best Baltic Book Art".
Literature: Member of the Estonian Writers' Union and the PEN Club. Four published poetry compendiums, have participated in literary collectives. The earthly embodiment of Näo Kirik Publishing. Recipient of an Estonian Cultural Capital annual stipend, Estonian National Culture Fund prize and an Apollo award.
Board games: I have designed and composed ten or so group- and board games. Partner and creative director at board game publisher Revaler. Game of the Year nominations in Finland and Sweden.

Contact: asko@kynnap.ee

About himself:
My childhood stretches back into a time when a gray, moist dishrag hung above heads instead of the sky and people were bereft of names; they were simply numbered. Yes, that's right, you got it: Soviet times. Toys were made of cast iron then, and the children weak from vitamin-deficient food could barely manage to move them. Though luckily there were communal rooms where children were kept, so small that not more than one toy at a time could fit in with a child.
Asko Künnap is a designer, poet and creative director at an advertising agency. He additionally busies himself with publishing and graphic design, poetry translations, designing covers for books and records, inventing and illustrating board games and also – from time to time – practicing ordinary gray magic.
"I don't watch TV, I don't read tabloids or online commentary. And I avoid vacuous people when at all possible. It's an art that takes practice. Vacuous people do not become emptier as a result of this, while I am able to fill my days with something more substantial than bickering with salesmen, real estate agents and drones. Thinking, for example."