What would the world be like if we stopped claiming to know everything and asked questions instead? If we did a bit of research, made space for new perspectives, and learned to sit with nuance and contradictions? Sound liberating? I think so too. A good place to explore what that would be like is Poesiefestival, running throughout the city until 15.06.2025. Venues include the Akademie der Künste’s Moabit Division and Silent Green in Wedding, a space of transience and possibility. Over 150 authors, performers, and thinkers from around the world will gather here. The main festival opens on Tuesday (03.06), with the Berlin Poetry Lecture by Claudia Rankine, titled Writing as Seeing. What follows is a diverse program of poetry talks, performances, the Zebra Poetry Film Festival, and themed evenings such a Writing Identities.
A highlight? Open-air readings in the garden. For the closing weekend (14.–15.06), the festival returns to the Akademie der Künste: on Saturday (14.06), the focus is Writing Sports — a series of readings exploring the link between poetry and physical movement. On Sunday (15.06.) Weltklang – Nacht der Poesie brings together voices in many languages, reminding us that poetry doesn’t require national borders to resonate. And if you’d like to take a piece of the festival home, in the courtyard poetry market you’ll discover hand-stitched booklets, readings for children, casual conversations in the greenery, and poems as quiet companions for everyday life. If all of this sounds too lofty, don’t worry, nothing is claimed as fact, only offered as a pause for thought.
Text: Hilka Dirks / Photos: Ricardo DeAratanha, Michael Kuchinke-Hofer / Still: Requiem for Eve, Anna-Maria Chernigovskaya
Poesiefestival Berlin until 15.06.2025
You can find the tickets, program and more here.
@hausfuerpoesie
