19th poesiefestival berlin: Valued Art of Verse
14.12.2017
The 19th poesiefestival berlin is taking place from 24 to 31 May 2018 with the theme of “Valued Art of Verse”, organised by the Haus für Poesie in co-operation with the Academy of Arts.
Humanity and Enlightenment: what have been seen up to now as humanist values are today being called into question. Values undergo constant change. In an age of Internet trolling and fake news we need to be certain of what we have and to value it when it is threatened. Language is our main tool in dealing with the world, and playing with language in lines of verse often opens up new and surprising ways of seeing things. The poem is the art form of language and like a small power station releases energy as light and provides enlightenment.
The Haus für Poesie is inviting poets to the 19th poesiefestival berlin from around the globe who will be interrogating values through their art of verse and taking the stage with their poetry. One focus this year will be on Concrete, Visual and Sound Poetry. Language is freed from its baggage of associations and ideology and reduced to its core. A number of Berlin galleries will be displaying new and traditional positions at the festival, which will be discussed in the Colloquium: The New Concrete? The theme Should I Stay Or Should I Go? will feature texts written in exile. The political situation in the Czech Republic will no doubt be reflected in this year’s Czech-German VERSschmuggel / reVERSible and Spoken Word artists from different continents will be having something to say about climate change.
Elke Erb will be giving the 2018 Berlin Poetry Lecture under the title ‘The Poem Is What It Does’. The festival will as always open with Weltklang offering a panorama in many languages of poetry from around the world. Text will be simply sung at the big singer-songwriter concert; and new three D poetry productions will be exploring the interplay between text, music and dance.
19th poesiefestival berlin: Valued Art of Verse
24 to 31 May 2018
Academy of Arts, Hanseatenweg 10, 10557 Berlin
Berlin galleries and archives
The poesiefestival berlin is a project by the Haus für Poesie in co-operation with the Academy of Arts and gratefully acknowledges the support of the Hauptstadtkulturfonds.
About the poesiefestival berlin:
The poesiefestival berlin is the biggest of its kind in Europe and brings some 150 well-known poets and artists to Berlin each year from around the world. The art of poetry has long been looking for forms of presentation besides the book and experiments with theatre, performance, music, dance, film and digital media. The festival gives you the audience the opportunity to experience poetry close-up in all its diversity of forms and attracts up to 13,000 visitors each year. It has been taking place since 2000, and since 2008 the Academy of Arts (Hanseatenweg 10) has been our co-operation partner and the hub venue for the festival.
The festival motif for download: www.haus-fuer-poesie.org/de/presse