Germany hosts Europe’s largest poetry festival, celebrating its 25th edition in Berlin, featuring poetry from minority languages such as Catalan.
Category
🗞
NewsTranscript
00:00Inside a circus tent in Berlin, movement mixes with the spoken word. This is part of the
00:0925th annual edition of what's billed as the largest poetry festival in Europe. Two poets
00:15from Spain said they performed their work in Catalan to highlight how endangered the
00:20language is.
00:22Poetry does express this feeling of being in a language that is not a hegemonic language,
00:34so a language that is not part of the main European cultural, like historically thinking.
00:44But Catalan does have a huge importance.
00:52Yael Manuel Ermay tackled the use of language and gender identity. They said the German
00:57language with its gender nouns forces people to think in binary terms.
01:03It's just, it's so weird because we learn languages in school, but actually I never
01:07learned to talk about myself, so there was definitely just some language not provided
01:11to me, and then I definitely feel like exploring it through poetry, like, or trying to express
01:19myself through poetry, not within that weird school setting that wasn't really beneficial
01:25for me, definitely helped me.
01:29Works are being presented across the city, from an audio installation next to a techno
01:33club to a restaurant courtyard. More than 150 artists from around the world are coming
01:41to Berlin for this festival, and the subjects reflect that diversity, from an American artist
01:47talking about homophobia in the U.S. to Ukrainian poets talking about how the war is impacting
01:53their homes.
01:54The performers say they hope poetry will provide a wider European audience an emotional connection
02:00to their subject matter.
02:02Poetry is not only about the specific words, it's a universal language, and through this
02:09we try to expand not only the spoken word, but the images, the rhythm, the effects, the
02:18feelings.
02:19The festival runs until the 21st. There will also be training for poetry educators, workshops
02:25for children, and a panel on socio-political issues.