1st Athens World Poetry Festival
The 1st Athens World Poetry Festival is going to be held between the 23rd and the 29th of September 2013 involving the participation of poets from twenty-two different countries. The festival is put together by the "Circle of Poets" in collaboration with the Municipality of Athens, the Athens Megaron Concert Hall, the Benaki Museum and other cultural institutions based in the region of Attica.
The program of the festival presents as many as 22 public events, including readings, exhibitions, talks and music and involving the capital Athens, the city of Piraeus, as well as the areas of Kessariani, Nea Ionia, Nea Smirni, Imitos and other areas around Athens, such as Delphi. A very original and distinctive feature of the festival is also the fact that poets will be doing some poetry readings to non-public places, such as at the juvenile detention center in Avlona and the female prisons in Koridalos.
Greece, a small place on earth with history and soul, was and remains a country of poets. Poetry is emitted by the soul and touches the soul.
Participating poets:
Modern Greek poetry will be represented by Katerina Angelaki Rook, Nanos Valaoritis, Anastasis Vistonitis, Giannis Dalas, Kiki Dimoula (who will not be attending due to health reasons but her poetry will be read), Dimitris Kalokiris, Kostas G. Papageorgiou and Titos Patrikios. The Mexican poet of Greek origin Homero Aridjis, the Italian Lello Voce, Adam Zagajewski from Poland, the Irish Desmond Egan, Jochen Kelter from Germany, Lan Lan from China, the Spaniard Juan Carlos Mestre, the Serbian Miodrag Pavlovic and the Danish Pia Tafdrup are the nine poets from abroad who will present their work at the gardens of the Athens Megaron Concert Hall on the first night of the festival.
International poetry will be read in Greek by Konstantinos Tzoumas. George Chouliaras will be the moderator of the meeting, while the musical part will be covered by the two guitarists Stelios Gkolgkaris and Vassilis Mastorakis.
For the program of the festival in detail, please click here.
Watch the video below to hear in Greek, one of the most beautiful poems by Kiki Dimoula titled "The plural form".
