19. poesiefestival berlin: Highlights for the Start!

16.05.2018

The 19th poesiefestival berlin is starting on 24  May 2018. The Haus für Poesie is hosting 150 poets and artists from 51 countries. Under the heading ‘Values Verse Art‘ the international poets will be exploring our values through the art of verse and bringing them to the stage as poetry – in readings, poetry talks, performances, concerts, colloquia and exhibitions. There will be a special focus on concrete, visual and sound poetry.

The Festival’s highlights include the big opening event, ‘Weltklang – Night of Poetry‘, bringing together poetry from around the world in a concert of many languages, the ‘Berlin Poetry Lecture’ given this year by Elke Erb with the title ‘The Poem Is What It Does’, and ‘Elegy and Upheaval’ with the artist Ai Weiwei, the author Yang Lian and the poet Zheng Xiaiqiong.


Weltklang – Night of Poetry
Friday, 25 May 2018, 7 pm

With Charles Bernstein (USA) | Robert Forster (Australia) | Jorge Kanese (Paraguay) | Katalin Ladik (Ungary) | Ketty Nivyabandi (Burundi) | Kerstin Preiwuß (Germany) | Yoko Tawada (Japan/Germany) feat. Joachim Heintz (Germany) composer | Søren Ulrik Thomsen (Denmark) | Eugeniusz Tkaczyszyn-Dycki (Poland) | Host: Insa Wilke (Germany) literary critic

Weltklang – Night of Poetry is the polyphonic opening of the poesiefestival berlin. Poets from every part of the world read, sing and perform in their own native languages and show the wealth of contemporary poetry in all its diversity of content, approaches and styles. An anthology with German translations of the poems is being published exclusively for the reading.

Weltklang – Night of Poetry is made possible with the kind support of the Danish Arts Foundation, the Royal Danish Embassy Berlin, the Rhythmicalizer Research Group, the Swedish Embassy Berlin and The Mandala Hotel.


2018 Berlin Poetry Lecture: Elke Erb “The poem is what it does”
Sunday, 27 May 2018, 7.30 pm

Drawing on Elke Erb’s diary entries from the past few years, she will be allowing us an insight into her daily writing practice. She tells of the attempt “to write the way one thinks to oneself” and explains how her language of the moment is set off by whatever happens to be caught in the “nets” of her senses. The Poem Is What It Does is being published in German and English (translation by Shane Anderson) by Wallstein Verlag (€ 13.90).

 

Elegy and Upheaval
Tuesday, 29 May 2018, 7.30 pm

With Ai Weiwei (China/Germany) | Zheng Xiaoqiong (China) | Yang Lian (China/Germany) | Host: Claudia Kramatschek (Germany) literary critic

China is one of the big beneficiaries profiting from globalisation. But it remains politically sealed off. Artists such as Ai Weiwei (b. 1957 in Beijing) and Yang Lian (b. 1955 in Berne) have been forced to live in exile. In their most recent works, both deal with the losers of globalisation, Ai Weiwei in his documentary film Human Flow, and Yang Lian in his long poem Venice Elegy. The losers also include migrant workers who work on conveyor belts for rock-bottom wages. One of them is the poet Zheng Xiaoqiong (b. 1980 in Sichuan), who works through her experiences in her texts.

The reading Elegy and upheaval is organised jointly with Poetry on the Road and is made possible with the kind support of the Confucius Institute Bremen and ECHOO Konferenzdolmetschen.


19th poesiefestival berlin: Values Verse Art
24 to 31 May 2018
Academy of Arts, Hanseatenweg 10, 10557 Berlin


Festival program and advance tickets at: www.haus-fuer-poesie.org
Press Accreditation at:
presse@haus-fuer-poesie.org
Please state your name, medium and contact address.
Press photos for download: www.haus-fuer-poesie.org/de/presse

 

For enquiries and information:
Haus für Poesie
Mira Lina Simon
Press & Publicity
Tel: 030. 48 52 45 24
E-Mail: presse@haus-fuer-poesie.org

The 19th poesiefestival berlin is a project by the Haus für Poesie in co-operation with the Academy of Arts and acknowledges the kind support of the Capital Cultural Fund and Maritim proArte Hotel Berlin, and is presented by kulturradio rbb, tip Berlin, taz, BÜCHERmagazin and Deutschlandfunk Kultur.