The Poets’ Circle invites you to the 2nd Athens World Poetry Festival, from the 21st September to the 26th September 2015. The festival will commence in the Garden of Megaro Mousikis, the Athens Concert Hall, on the 21st at 19:30.

The Athens Concert Hall opens once again this year a new door to poetry and hosts the second poetry festival, in collaboration with the Poets’ Circle, the first poets’ club in Greece, the Municipality of Athens and the Benaki Museum. 50 poets from 21 different countries will take part in the festival.

In 2012, the Poets’ Circle was founded in Greece – the first poets’ club in Greece – and one of its goals is the continuous and public communication of poetry with the wider public. A second important goal is the organisation of the Athens World Poetry Festival.This year, the second festival is taking place, and features the “dream team” of world poetry. 50 poets from 21 countries from the four corners of the world. Greece will be represented by Nanos Valaoritis, Titos Patrikios, Kiki Dimoula, Evgenios Aranitsis, Giannis Dallas, Dimitra Christodoulou and Kostas Stergiopoulos. Some of the many poets from abroad are Adonis, Carolyn Forch, Rikardo Areggi, Gerhard Falkner and Fernando Rendon.

There is a musical show in the festival as well, on the closing day (Saturday 26th September). Musicians such as Natalia Geraki and Kostis Kritsotakis will participate. There will be Ionian dances, a recitation by Mr Kritsiotakis, a small ballet show based on the poem “Ionikon” («Ιωνικόν») by Konstantinos Kavafis, and the three-part sonata by Francis Poulenc. During the festival week, through fifteen public events (readings, day workshops, music, visual arts, and more), poetry will travel everywhere. To Cultural centres in various municipalities around Athens, bookstores, cafes and bars, galleries, public squares and even prisons. Poetry will meet the ‘simple man’ in his day to day life, to show its presence, in hard times like today, that it exists “to remind us that we are humans” and that poets write to understand life and their peers. Poetry becomes redemption of the simple man, opening an inviting door, a door in which we see the world as if it was for the first time. Find out more from the programme of the Athens World Poetry Festival.

Source: Greece Alive