In 2008, he was Max Kade German Writer in Residence at Oberlin College. In 2001 his first volume of poetry "Probebohrung im Himmel" was published. Wagner's poems have been translated into thirty languages. Wagner has been translator of English-language poetry (Charles Simic, James Tate, Simon Armitage, Matthew Sweeney and others), freelance reviewer (Frankfurter Rundschau and others) and until 2003 co-editor of the international literature box "The Outside of the Element".
