napovednik dogodkov Versopolis
Dear Versopolis friends,Welcome to the May edition of the Versopolis newsletter! This month, we embark on another poetic journey across Europe, visiting three vibrant poetry festivals in Barcelona, Ireland, and Riga. We also reflect on our recent experiences in Zagreb, where diverse voices converged at Goran's Spring. In our latest podcast episode, we venture beyond Europe to explore contemporary Chinese poetry, gaining insights into this rich literary landscape. Additionally, our Authors of the Week segment highlights Swedish poets discussing current trends in Swedish poetry. Exciting news awaits as we announce the revival of the Versopolis-supported Bazhan residency in Ukraine, now back and in full swing. Join us as we continue to explore, celebrate, and connect through the art of poetry!
With poetic regards,
Your Versopolis teamCONTEMPORARY CHINESE POETRYVersopolis podcast #15Chinese contemporary poetry is flourishing. The most exciting poetic voices come from the 200 million migrant workers working in China. This phenomenon is still largely unknown, even though some of these workers come west to pursue their creative pursuits. The Chinese Swiss-born poet Yang Lian is one of the seminal voices of Chinese contemporary poetry from the 1980s onwards, when his work with the Misty poets combined traditional Chinese poetry forms with western modernism. He posits that every poet is the centre of the concentric circle that radiates outwards and intersects with his peers, family and society at large. Yang rejects the simplistic individual-collective dichotomy of society and states that poetry should be intimately connected with life and language. What if all poetry is in fact just one large piece of art, transcending languages, traditions and cultures? What if at the centre, this project is nothing more but an endless pursuit of a conscience’s perpetual questioning of itself?>> Listen here
Dates: 15th – 22nd May 2024
Location: Barcelona, Spain
Barcelona Poesia, the esteemed poetry festival held since 1985, epitomizes the creative heartbeat of Barcelona. Throughout the festival, diverse poetic voices converge across different areas of the city, showcasing both emerging talents and established poets. It's a wonderful opportunity to discover new expressions and savor the latest works of renowned poets.Cork
International Poetry Festival
Dates: 15th – 18th May 2024
Location: Cork, Ireland
As Ireland’s largest dedicated poetry event, the Cork International Poetry Festival invites poets from around the globe, representing six languages and spanning four continents. This festival offers a diverse range of poetic experiences akin to exploring music genres, catering to varied tastes and curiosities. Discover poetry that transcends generations, languages, cultures, and themes—there's something for everyone to enjoy and explore.Punctum Festival
Dates: 22nd – 31st May 2024
Location: Riga, Latvia
The Punctum Festival’s current edition will focus on exploring the interaction between humanity and nature. Expect local and international writers to delve into ecology-related topics, encouraging reflections on our relationship with the environment and challenging conventional notions of man's place in nature. >> Find out more about the upcoming festivals
Translatorium received 45 applications from different cities of Ukraine, each of which was carefully processed, so choosing only 2 among all the applications was extremely difficult. In the period from May 13 to July 12, 2024, Mikhailo Zharzhailo - poet, translator, essayist and performer and Alexander Mymruk - a poet, journalist, editor and cultural critic will come to work to Kamianets-Podilsky.
Keep an eye on Translatorium’s page and social media as the next open call at BAZHAN residency will be announced in June. Anyone who works with poetry in various forms can participate, however the preference in selection will be given to the applicant(s) from the cities and regions most affected by the war.
The project is implemented with the support of Versopolis and financed by the European Union's program "Creative Europe".>> Visit Translatorium's website
The Swedish poetry debate seems to thrive on dull polarisation. In the early 2000s, two opposing camps were pitted against each other, where one (the ‘retrogardists’) defended a traditional way of writing and the other (the ‘linguistic materialists’) engaged in word-play and meta-poems. The debate did not make anyone happy, and the conclusion soon crystallised that good poetry can be written both by those who use traditional means and innovative methods, not to mention all the good poetry written by those who managed to maintain a position in each camp.>> Keep readingSome tendencies in contemporary Swedish poetry by Helena FagertunIn his article Some Tendencies in Swedish Contemporary Poetry, published recently here on Versopolis Review, critic Björn Kohlström shows how the recurring poetry debates in Sweden seem to deal with either the incomprehensibility of poetry or ‘the alignments that occur when so many debutants have studied at one of the country’s prestigious writing schools.’ On the lines of Kohlström’s own conclusion, I have never been particularly worried about contemporary Swedish poetry being too aligned, and one of the main reasons for that is that poetry written in other languages is still translated into Swedish and thanks to that supplying other perspectives. >> Keep reading
VIR: Versopolis
