Preview of the 21st poesiefestival berlin

The online programme for Planet P is coming along nicely

           

Preparations for the poesiefestival berlin (5–11 June) are in full swing. For the first time in its 21-year history, it is taking place as a purely online festival. The festival site will be going live from the end of May.



The festival is presenting around 150 writers from 29 countries, who will be appearing in more than 100 online events including talks, readings, slams, interviews and workshops. A huge challenge! But we will definitely be keeping some familiar formats such as Weltklang – Night of Poetry (with readings by nine poets from nine countries) and the translation workshop VERSschmuggel/reVERSible. These are currently being put together all over the world in Zoom conferences, videos, audio recordings, etc., with post-production in Berlin to make them Internet-compatible. They will be joined by live formats during the festival itself.



The Poetry Talks featuring poets from the Weltklang programme will be uploaded as text interviews. Poets’ Corner is even getting a change of name: the annual series that kicks off the festival cannot go out into the streets of the Berlin neighbourhoods this year, so instead it will be coming from the homes of Berlin poets, and Poets’ Home (Corners) will feature readings and home stories reflecting the “corontine”. Even the Poetry Market that takes place on the Sunday during the festival will be available online, with publishers and magazines presenting their current poetry output in blogs and vlogs. Poetic Education offers further training for poetry disseminators and workshops on sound poetry and Poetry Yoga, with closing readings in which the next generation of poets present their work.