Presse

Preview of the 21st poesiefestival berlin

The online programme for Planet P is coming along nicely

2020-04-23

Preparations for the poesiefestival berlin (5–11 June) are in full swing. For the first time in its 21-year history, it is taking place as a purely online festival. The festival site will be going live from the end of May.

The festival is presenting around 150 writers from 29 countries, who will be appearing in more than 100 online events including talks, readings, slams, interviews and workshops. A huge challenge! But we will definitely be keeping some familiar formats such as Weltklang – Night of Poetry (with readings by nine poets from nine countries) and the translation workshop VERSschmuggel/reVERSible. These are currently being put together all over the world in Zoom conferences, videos, audio recordings, etc., with post-production in Berlin to make them Internet-compatible. They will be joined by live formats during the festival itself.

The Poetry Talks featuring poets from the Weltklang programme will be uploaded as text interviews. Poets’ Corner is even getting a change of name: the annual series that kicks off the festival cannot go out into the streets of the Berlin neighbourhoods this year, so instead it will be coming from the homes of Berlin poets, and Poets’ Home (Corners) will feature readings and home stories reflecting the “corontine”. Even the Poetry Market that takes place on the Sunday during the festival will be available online, with publishers and magazines presenting their current poetry output in blogs and vlogs. Poetic Education offers further training for poetry disseminators and workshops on sound poetry and Poetry Yoga, with closing readings in which the next generation of poets present their work.

The poesiefestival berlin has been taking place since 2000 and is the biggest of its kind in Europe. As well as the book, poetry has long sought other forms of presentation and experiments with theatre, performance, music, dance, film and digital media. The festival enables poetry to be experienced in all its diversity of forms and welcomes up to 13,000 visitors each year.

The 21st poesiefestival berlin is a project by the Haus für Poesie. Funded by the Capital Cultural Fund and with the kind support of the Federal Foreign Office, the Government of Canada, the Embassy of Canada to Germany, the Ministère des Relations internationales et de la Francophonie du Québec, the Québec Government Office in Germany, as well as Federal Agency for Civic Education. Presented by Der Freitag, taz, BÜCHERmagazin, tip Berlin, rbbKultur, ASK HELMUT, iHeartBerlin, EXBERLINER and Deutschlandfunk Kultur.

FRI 5 – THU 11 June 2020
21st poesiefestival berlin: Planet P
Online Edition #planetpgoeson