Athens World Poetry Festival. 23-29 September, 2013

Athens World Poetry Festival

23 – 29 September 2013

Press conference

Wednesday, September 11, 12 noon

Αntonis Tritsis Hall
Cultural Center of the City of Athens
50 Αcademias St.


The Poets Circle, in collaboration with the City of Athens, the Athens Concert Hall, the Benaki Museum, and other leading cultural institutions and municipalities of the Attica region, is organizing the first Athens World Poetry Festival from September 23 to 29 in several venues. And who wants poets in lean years, Hölderlin wondered two centuries ago. Exceptional poetry, however, was written during difficult and small-minded times. T. S. Eliot’s Four Quartets were published as World War II raged, while Brecht’s best poems were inspired in exile. It was during war that Seferis wrote the Last Station and Engonopoulos wrote Bolivar. In our lean and small-minded times, the Poets Circle, an initiative undertaken two years ago, is organizing an international poetry festival, highlighting a common field of sensitivity in Europe, Asia, Africa, and America. Greece is a major stakeholder in this field, with claims to the significance and extroversion the country needs and deserves. Geographically compact, but with a vast historical depth, Greece has been and remains a land of poets. On Homer’s sandy shores during the day and in Homer’s shadow at night, Greeks continue to create.

Poets Circle, 6 Heraclitus St, 10673, Athens, Greece, +30 210 3623 792
MEDIA CONTACTS

Dimitris Angelis +30 697 3501 028 angelisdim@hotmail.com

Yiorgos Chouliaras +30 697 4980 717 yiorgos.chouliaras@gmail.com