Virna Teixeira is a Brazilian poet, writer, translator based in London. Her poetry books and poetry pamphlets were published in Brazil, Portugal, Mexico, Peru, Argentina and the UK. She started her work as an independent publisher in 2009 with Arqueria Editorial, in São Paulo, publishing stitched chapbooks. After moving to London, she developed in 2015 the publishing poetry project Carnaval Press, and the electronic literary and visual arts magazine Theodora.
She has presented her work in several poetry festivals in South America, U.S. and Europe, and has experience as a curator in international poetry festivals in São Paulo and Lisbon.
In the UK, Virna has read and performed at European Poetry Festival, Xing the Line, HiZero series, Caplet, Ikletik, n.o.where, The Museum of Futures, The Library, Scottish Poetry Library, British Library, The Feminist Library, and at the Brazilian Embassy in London. She performed at sound festival Sonic Waterloo in London with Catalan poet Albert Pellicer. She was guest editor of an special issue on Brazilian feminist writings for magazine Alba Londres #8.
In the UK her poetry has been published on Poetry Wales; datableed; The Hollow Earth; ZARF; Painted, Spoken; The Projectionist Playground and The Writers Cafe. In the U.S., her work appeared in Aufgabe; Tigertail, Solitary Plover. Virna's work had several poems published in magazines in Latin America and Portugal.
As a translator, Virna translates poetry from English, Spanish and French to Portuguese, and from Portuguese to English and Spanish. She published three titles of Scottish poetry in translation in Brazil, and the work of several Latin American contemporary poets in magazines, anthologies and chapbooks. She has recently focused on the translation of Brazilian contemporary poetry to English. She has also translated the works of several avant-garde international poets to magazines and anthologies, like Lorine Niedecker, Robert Creeley, Lee Harwood, Mina Loy, Jose Kozer, to name some, and published chapbooks of translations of Paul Éluard and Tristan Tzara.
She has been exploring with visual arts and her work can be accessed on Instagram. She has also explored with film poems. She had three film poems selected for Festival do minuto (one minute film festival). 'No poema dela' (in her poem) was selected for Festival Silêncio (2017) in Lisbon.
Virna trained as a neurologist in Brazil, and now works with psychiatry in the NHS. She is training as Jungian analyst at IGAP in London.