The Akademie der Künste on Hanseatenweg, built by Werner Düttmann, is unquestionably one of the most beautiful buildings in the city. The grasses gently sway in the atrium on the second floor, the natural stone of the outside creeps harmoniously into the building, wood becomes floor, handrail and wall. It’s architecture like poetry – what better place, then, to host the poesiefestival berlin? The 24th edition (09-16.06.2023) will take place along Tiergarten with this year’s title: “no one is an island”. We all live, feel and resonate in relationships with each other. Many-voiced and diverse, we always create common ground, even when the lonely in us sometimes seems larger: no one is an island. This can be reassuring and frightening. A shared speaking, a poetic togetherness, a polyphonic being can explore this, experience it, alleviate it – and be celebrated. The festival will open with the Night of Poetry: “Weltklang”, where invited international poets will read in original languages – the audience can read along: in German or English.
The three big festival evenings deal with the themes of violence, identity and motherhood. “Writing Violence / Identities / Motherhood.” It’s about resistance, resilience, grief, anger and protest (Ramin Mahzar (AFG), Kholoud Charaf (SYR), Yevgeniy Breyger (DE)). Around radicality, marginalization, experience, perspective and feeling (Kemi Alabi, Kay Gabriel, Julian Talamantez Brolaski and Eileen Myles (!) (all USA). Around society and the individual, birth, abortion, pregnancy, childlessness and experience (TJ Dema (BWA), Alice Notley (USA) and Athena Farrokhzad (SWE). And so much more. Spoken word, poetic interventions, numerous poetry talks, the poetry market of independent publishers, poetry education, and awards ceremonies. No poem is an island. You can discover the whole continent of the poetry program here. And if you can’t wait until the festival starts, Poets’ Corner is on this Sunday (04.06) with readings by Berlin writers, including at Cashmere Radio and the Pablo Neruda Library.
Text: Hilka Dirks / Photos: Mirko Lux
poesiefestival berlin (09–16.06.2023) at the Akademie der Künste, Hanseatenweg 10, 10557 Berlin–Hansaviertel; map
Poets’ Corner (04.06–08.06.2023). The program can be found here.
@hausfuerpoesie
