Culmination of Poems in the City 2018

A wonderful evening of poetry reading ends Poems in the City 2018

Evening of poetry

The wide-reaching poetry event Poems in the City 2018 ends when the month of April does. But before that happens, an event was held, to send off the project in a fitting manner. This came in the form of an evening of poetry reading at the old orangery in Warsaw, which is now the home of The Royal Theater. Poems from the 18 represented countries was read aloud, both in Polish and in their respective original languages.

Reading from the poems in Polish was actors Beata Jewiarz and Arkadius Brykalski. The original language version of the Danish contribution, a poem by Inger Christensen, was read by the director of DCI in Poland, Bogusława Sochańska. Bogusława has recently translated Christensen’s collection “alfabet” into Polish. Hosting the evening was Maciej Ulewicz, radio presenter among other creative lines of work, while the musical setting was provided by Piotr Łyczkowski.

Poems in the City 2018

The concept of Poems in the City came into being last year, developed from what had been known as Poems in the Metro. The reach of the project was far wider in this second edition though. The amount of poems distributed across Warsaw, in several inventive ways, went from about 27.000 to over 100.000. Last year’s theme was Europe, Poems in the City 2018 focused on Freedom.

Freedom can be interpreted in many ways, and mean different things depending on the context. With 18 poems, each from a different country, great diversity was guaranteed. When presented together, the cultural perspective of each individual poet offered a rich idea of how freedom can be perceived. As mentioned, the Danish contribution was a poem by the legendary Inger Christensen.

Organizers: European Union National Institutes for Culture (EUNIC Warsaw)

Co-organizer: City of Warsaw

Partners: European Commission representation in Poland, the Royal Łazienki Museum

Photos: Poems in the City