(b.1964) is Managing Director of Poetry International Rotterdam, organiser of the annual Poetry International Festival, and of Poetry International WEB, one of the most important international websites on poetry. Bas Kwakman was educated as a visual artist and teacher of Art History and worked as an independant artist for several years. After his studies Marketing and Management for Art and Culture he became an organiser in the field of arts: visual arts, contemporary music and literature. Bas Kwakman worked as a Project-Manager and Marketing Manager for the two major Art Foundations in Rotterdam. In 1996 he co-founded a magazine and publishing house for Literature and Visual Arts and in 2003 he started working for Poetry International as Managing Director and programmer of the yearly Poetry International Festival. The Poetry International Festival in Rotterdam is for almost forty years one of the leading festivals on international poetry in the world and is the main international meeting place of poets, poetry-professionals and poetry lovers. Besides the festival, Poetry International is the central organization of Poetry International Web (www.poetryinternational.org), a worldwide website on international Poetry with editors in more than 45 countries, that publishes a quarterly magazine on the web www.poetryinternational.org