HAUS FÜR POESIE

Each year, the festival begins with a Berlin-wide pre-program: whether in a workshop in Neukölln, a warehouse on Eiswerder Island, a circus tent in Hohenschönhausen, the public library in Marzahn, or the beech garden of Akademie der Künste — poets read and perform in diverse spaces, opening up temporary new venues for poetry for an entire week.

Many of the participating artists work transdisciplinarily, combining poetry with music, visual art, or installation.

The main festival follows at two venues: Akademie der Künste, a long-standing partner, and since 2023, also silent green. The program includes established evening events such as Weltklang – Night of Poetry, in which eight international poets read in their original languages, and the Berlin Poetry Lecture, held annually since 2016 by a contemporary poet.

In larger panel discussions, poets also engage with broader topics, which in recent years have included themes such as “Writing Class,” “Writing Identities,”, "Writing Histories", "Writing Motherhood" or “Writing Sports".

Afternoons offer the chance to get to know poets and their work in intimate poetry talks.

On the festival’s final weekend, a poetry market opens with publishers and magazines from Germany, Austria, and Switzerland. Numerous poets perform in free outdoor readings, and the Poetic Education team offers a wide-ranging program for families, including workshops for all age groups.

Since its founding in 2000, Poesiefestival Berlin has invited international poets to the city. Up to 50 artists travel from countries outside of Europe, with an additional 100 poets joining from European countries and Berlin’s international poetry scene.

Events are held in up to 20 different languages, always with simultaneous interpretation into German or English. Since 2023, festival poems are not only translated into German, but also into English.

A poetry magazine is published annually for the festival, featuring poems and newly commissioned texts. In addition, an anthology of the featured poets' works — in both German and English — is published.

The Berlin Poetry Lecture is published each year as a book by Wallstein Verlag.

Often, Poesiefestival Berlin presents the very first German translations of major international poets, which are later taken up by German publishers. Invited poets are also recorded in our in-house studio for Lyrikline, and translations of their recorded poems are made permanently available on the website.