Dear Versopolis friends,With the year slowly wrapping up, so are the Versopolis festivals.
Dear Versopolis friends,With the year slowly wrapping up, so are the Versopolis festivals. In November, two more festivals — one in Bratislava, the other in Madrid — will take place before a short pause, ending in early spring 2025.But no worries: Versopolis activities never end. We are getting ready for the new edition of Poetry Expo 2025 and are awaiting your applications to address today's pressing issues through poetry together. Igniting Change, One Verse at a Time.When does poetry become music? How do they complement each other, and when can verses be heard in even the most ordinary sounds? In the new episode of the Versopolis podcast, we explore different modes of experimentation with music and sounds. Listen in!Last but certainly not least, we offer you a look into three countries, six new authors of the week and at least as many different poetics to explore — perfect for cozying up on these colder days.
With poetic regards,
Your Versopolis teamPOETRY EXPO 2025Call for proposalsWe are delighted to announce the new edition of Poetry Expo 2025, organised and curated by Versopolis, the European platform for poetry. After the incredible success of previous editions, Poetry Expo 2025 returns with renewed energy, continuing to explore the vital role of poetry and literature in fostering global understanding, creativity and dialogue. This year's theme, 'Igniting Change, One Verse at a Time', aims to explore how poetry can move us forward, both as individuals and as a global society.
We invite creative individuals, communities, festivals and organisations from around the world to submit projects that push boundaries, embrace innovation and address today's pressing issues. The call for proposals is live. Apply through our application form by 3rd of January 2025 and become part of the world's largest digital celebration of poetry, where creativity meets purpose.>> Learn more
‘Andrelo’ is a Spanish music therapist, poet and rapper who recently released his first album, HILO, which blends poetry, hip-hop and electronic music. Primož Čučnik, one of the leading voices in Slovenian poetry, forms along with Ana Pepelnik and Tomaž Grom, the experimental trio CPG Impro, creating soundscapes using a double bass, household items and spoken word.>> Listen here
Ars Poetica is a dynamic festival that bridges poetry with various art forms, creating an interdisciplinary experience for attendees. Since its inception, the festival has hosted over three hundred poets and expanded its offerings to include film, multimedia segments like Poetry & Video and Poetry & Music, emphasizing poetry’s potential to transcend traditional boundaries. The festival’s yearly anthology, a nearly 400-page publication, encapsulates the work of participating poets in both their original languages and Slovak translations, celebrating linguistic diversity and fostering cross-cultural literary engagement.
Poetas Festival Madrid
POETAS, a poetry festival in Madrid, began informally 18 years ago and has since grown into a celebrated cultural event in the city. According to the POETAS team, poetry is poetry and everything that is not, and edition after edition the aim is to continue exploring new formats, contents and infinite formulas to communicate verses. As for this year's edition, POETAS is beginning a new stage with La Casa Encendida by launching their most ambitious production yet, Mozart's #Requiem, a reinterpretation of the first 8 movements. 
If there is something that contemporary literature has adopted from social media and perfected, it is the act of making constant curtsies to readers. I do not mean this pejoratively, nor do I say that it necessarily leads to compromises in writing. What I rather have in mind is that specific care, that specific search for readers which promises larger popularity and more vigorous life for literature by allowing it to enter everyday practices.>> Keep reading
Four contemporary poets – four paths to renewing Bulgarian poetry by Ivan Hristov
Offering a brief overview of their poetic work as a whole, and selecting one poem that is emblematic of each, Ivan Hristov sheds light on four Bulgarian postmodernist poets. He tentatively names the paths of renewal of the Bulgarian poetic tradition which the poets are treading as ‘Literary Theory’, ‘Nature’, ‘Hell’ and ‘The Body’, guiding readers on a journey through contemporary Bulgarian poetry.>> Keep reading
The long dry spell passing without a poem is not what you expect when you publish a debut poetry collection at eighteen. It gives rise to a distinct feeling that you have suddenly forgotten a whole language – its structure, vocabulary, punctuation. Take any word and use it in another poem and it would look like a discovery, an architectural wonder.>> Keep reading
Hamlet Arakelyan's poetry collection How Sad Though by Armen Sargsyan
Was it worthwhile challenging poetry by telling it not to make an effort, that ‘everything is divided and devoted’? Or saying that even if you resort to self-reflection, it still brings things seen and heard out of you? Of course not. The overcoming of this situation, which was divided and put on the shoulders of post-postmodernism, metamodernism and performatism, has come to say that a writer should not think about things dictated by literary critics or those involved in the commercialisation of literature. A writer’s job is to write. The rest comes later.>> Keep reading
For a long time, I was not a poetry reader. I read it here and there but mostly in a detached and unconcerned manner, neither feeling nor seeking any deeper connections or spiritual insights in poems. I always read free verse, intentionally avoiding the rhymes. I despised the poetry with rhymes and had the definite knowledge of the origins of this contempt – my childhood.>> Keep reading
Voices of Resistance by Tamar Zhghenti
The spirit of protest against political oppression runs deep in contemporary Georgian poetry, tracing its roots to ancient oral traditions and medieval Georgian literature. Given my country’s turbulent history – persistently targeted by world empires – this thread of resistance is unsurprising. It is fitting, then, that among the globally selected sounds for NASA’s Voyager Golden Records – launched in 1977 to tell Earth’s story to extraterrestrials – there is a symbol of Georgian resilience: the polyphonic folk song Chakrulo>> Keep reading
