Haus für Poesie

Ernst Jandl ©George Oliver

Poets Voices - opening of exhibition
Venue: Salon at Café Einstein Stammhaus
Time: 11 a. m
Tickets: 5/3 EUR

The exhibition “Anna Blume meets Zuckmayer“ collects over 70 original sound and film recordings by German-language writers. It presents the entire literary Who’s Who of the last century in audio documents: from the earliest recordings that have survived of a poem by Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach, spoken in 1901 into the funnel of a Viennese phonograph, to Thomas Mann’s TV speeches, Kisch’s breathless live reporting from Red Square, Karl Kraus’ impressive declamation of his poems, through to the video recording of Elfriede Jelinek’s Nobel Prize speech in 2004. The exhibition shows a century, heard in audio and seen in film recordings, presented through writers’ voices.

With kind support of the Beauftragter der Bundesregierung für Kultur und Medien, Pro Helvetia, Swiss Arts Council, the Swiss Embassy

Project manager: Anke Hoffmann

Eugen Gomringer ©gezett

Time: 2 p. m.

With Günter Abel, philosopher, TU Berlin;Roland Bernecker, General secretary UNESCO Commission Germany; Friedrich W. Block, media theorist; Stiftung Brückner-Kühner (Kassel); Hinderk M. Emrich, neurologist und researcher into synaesthesia, Medizinische Hochschule Hannover; Eugen Gomringer, poet, Institut für Konstruktive Kunst und Konkrete Poesie; Dieter Huber, linguist and researcher into computational linguistics, Mainz University; Wolfgang Kubin, translator and sinologist, Bonn University; Thomas Poiss, classical philologist and literary critic, Collaborative Research Centre "Transformations of Antiquity", HU Berlin.
Moderation: Matthias Kroß, Einstein Form Potsdam
Venue: Maschinenhaus, Kulturbrauerei
Tickets: PS 4/2 BO 5/3 EUR
Enrolement needed colloquim(at)literaturwerkstatt.org

A poem does not only play with the grammatical and semantic structures of language but also creates its own compositions of sound and rhythm. How can the poetical be transferred into another language and culture? What have computational linguists, neuroscientists, media theorists and philosophers to say about the cliché of the untranslatable poem, stuck in its metrical and linguistic context? What do cultural mediators think about the role of the poem in intercultural dialogue? And how do poets and translators go about shepherding the poem into the world? How does one translate and what is it that, in the final analysis, is translated? 
This year’s colloquium will deal not so much with the purely craft-based aspects of successful translation, but rather with the cultural, philosophical and poetological dimensions of translating – that is, the added poetic value that can arise through the transferral of a poem into another language, age and culture.

Project manager: Matthias Weichelt

Bei Dao ©gezett

When poetry becomes international
With Bei Dao USA Katarina Frostenson Sweden Hsia Yü Taiwan Asher Reich Israel Tomaž Šalamun Slowenien Paulo Teixeira Portugal
Presentation Bernhard Robben BrunneHerbert Wiesner PEN-Kongress Berlin
Venue: Maschinenhaus, Kulturbrauerei
Time: 8 p. m.
Tickets: PS 5/3 EUR,  BO 7/5 EUR

They live in hotel rooms and jet from festival to festival. When poetry becomes international, the poet’s idyll at the desk becomes obsolete. At the poesiefestival berlin, Bei Dao (USA), Katarina Frostenson (Sweden), Hsia Yü (Taiwan), Asher Reich (Israel), Tomaž Šalamun (Slovenia) and Paulo Teixeira (Portugal) will talk about their life somewhere between packed suitcases and airports. 
The success of poetry and the internationalism connected with that success have meant that the life of a poet has undergone a radical change. But his or her work is also now subject to new influences. What does this internationalisation of poetry mean for one’s own writing, what influence do fame and awards have on an artist’s sense of themself, what do poets feel about the metamorphosis of their texts into languages which they do not, perhaps, themselves understand?
Six of the most internationally important poets will talk about their way into the world, describe their best and worst experiences.

In cooperation with the PEN-Worldcongress 2006.
With kind support of the Embassy oft the United States of America, the embassy for the Swedish Kingdom and the Taipei Representation of the German Federal Republic.

Project manager: Matthias Weichelt

Ginka Steinwachs ©gezett

With Peter Dittmer Potsdam Hartmut GeerkenStuttgart, per Telefon Ginka Steinwachs Berlin
Venue: Maschinenhaus
Time: 10 p. m.
Tickets: PS 4/2 EUR, BO 5/3 EUR