Barcelona Poetry Week, from the 8th to the 14th of May

For the 29th edition of the Barcelona Poetry Festival, the commissioners of the event, D. Sam Abrams and Ernest Farrés, have prepared an ambitious programme that interconnects society, poets, and the world of literature through a wide variety of offerings that include all genres of poetry and which will be held in a number of locations around the city, including museums, institutions such as the Institut d’Estudis Catalans and the Ateneu, as well as a number of public venues such as plazas and libraries.
 

The programme includes recitals, conferences, debates and round table discussions as well as a number of acts events paying tribute to five Catalan poets who were born 100 years ago, Salvador Espriu, Joan Teixidor, Joana Raspall, Joaquim Amat-Piniella and Bartomeu Rosselló-Pòrcel.
 

“Poesia, estat de la qüestió” (Poetry, the state of play), will take place on Saturday the 11th in the Ateneu, in which four consecutive presentations will be made by publishers, critics, bloggers and translators. Among other events, the 19th Conference on Poetry and Interracial Culture, which this year goes by the title “La poesia: germana rica, germana pobra” (Poetry: rich man, poor man) will be occupying the more reflexive, theoretical aspects of the week, and a variety of recitals will give voice to oral poetry, including the longer poems of five renowned poets (Enric Casasses, Toni Clapés, Jordi Cervera, Jordi Julià and Josep Pedrals), Catalan poets who live outside the country, the poets of the Centre Dona i Literatura, or the four consecutive, intergenerational recitals on Sunday the 12th in the Institut d’Estudis Catalans.

 

Espriu Year (dedicated to the poetry of Salvador Espriu) will have a special significance during the week and the programme includes a number of related events such as recitals and conferences, as well as a concert by Maria del Mar Bonet on Saturday the 11th on the Avinguda de la Catedral, in which she will be singing poems by Espriu and Majorcan-born Bartomeu Rosselló-Pòrcel.
 

Carmen Amaya, E. E. Cummings, Lois Pereiro, Rosa Pou and Pau Riba are other featured names in this edition of the festival and, on Saturday the 11th, museums will be the protagonists with four simultaneous acts relating to art and poetry in four different venues with different speakers.
 

Seven days during which the streets of Barcelona will be brought to life with passion for the spoken word and the emotion of oral tradition and literature.