Akademie der Künste 2012 Foto: gezett.de
Every summer Berlin is transformed for ten days into a temple of poetry. 100 to 200 poets and artists from around the world come to the poesiefestival berlin to showcase current trends in contemporary poetry.
As well as the traditional book, poetry has long found other ways to find an audience, cheerfully experimenting with theatre, performance, music, dance, film and digital media. The festival gives visitors the opportunity to experience poetry in all its diversity of forms. The poesiefestival berlin demonstrates what power poetry has to inspire. It puts the art of language into the spotlight, pioneering new ways of presenting, publishing and distributing poetry, and its range is international. This is also where artistic directors of poetry festivals around the world come to meet each other.
The festival is regularly host to some 12,000 to 13,000 visitors, with poetry reaching its audience primarily in the many dimensions and facets of reading and performance.
Poets featured in the festival in the past have included Laurie Anderson, Arnaldo Antunes, Marcel Beyer, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Durs Grünbein, Friederike Mayröcker, Paul Muldoon, Herta Müller, Michael Palmer, PeterLicht, Silvio Rodríguez, Gerhard Rühm, Derek Walcott and Saul Williams.
The poesiefestival berlin has been taking place every year since 2000. Since 2008 its cooperation partner and main hub has been the Academy of the Arts in Berlin. It is supported by the Capital Culture Fund (Hauptstadtkulturfonds).