Haus für Poesie

Sunday, 6.11. 5 pm, Kino in der Kulturbrauerei

In 2022, ZEBRA again inspired the production of poetry films. Georg Leß is the author of this year's festival poem,  (“The Haircut”) – a witty, multilayered, and mysterious text. International filmmakers were invited to submit their visual interpretations of this poem. Poetry films reached us from Argentina, Belgium, Brazil, Germany, Greece, the United Kingdom, and Japan.

The three best film adaptations – by Beate Gördes (Germany), Patricia Delso Lucas (Belgium) & Johanna Wagner (Schweden), and Marc Neys (Belgium) – will be shown, along with the program’s longlisted works. Georg Leß will attend to read new poems. Odile Kennel, author of the 2021 Festival Poem, will speak with the author and directors about the relationship between poetry and film.

Content note: The films in this programme may contain explicit depictions of physical and/or psychological violence as well as various kinds of assault. Please be aware that these depictions may trigger survivors and may thus prove harmful to their mental health.

Ticket link

FESTIVAL POEM
GEORG LEß

THE HAIRCUT

Gooseflesh because you speak of flesh
before you speak of fur

when you say mongoose—
bloated and terrible—
I see your hair, your cheek, and know
I would never groom that animal,

though even the beasts who bred it
would not claim it,

though the two of us be hugged
by a pair of scissors,
aren’t we still safe,
if breathless, if our fur sprouts thick between us,

gooseflesh because you speak of expeditions, because 
you speak of the North before you speak of the ship, 
a wave of fur collapses over that ship and holds tight

toward another shore where language is 
as sore and particular as a furry export 
of logic, where I only feel
what my dry mouth cannot utter.

Translated by Jericho Brown
VERSschmuggel 2019, poesiefestival berlin

(Translations and recitation of the poem can be found on lyrikline.org)