Eleanor has been selected to take part in an exciting exchange programme between Ledbury Festival, UK and ten European Poetry Festivals.
Ledbury Poetry Festival is part of Versopolis. This is a European poetry platform that creates new opportunities for emerging European poets and is supported by the European Commission’s Creative Europe programme and coordinated by Beletrina Academic Press, who also organises the Days of Poetry and Wine Festival.
Excellent poets write poems in every language but are often unknown beyond the boundaries of the language they write in. The aim of Versopolis is to change this, creating a unique, Europe-wide platform that gives emerging European poets the chance to reach an international audience and meet poets from other countries.
For 2015 Ledbury Poetry Festival selected five emerging poets: Eleanor Rees, Liz Berry, Kim Moore, Adam Horovitz and Meirion Jordan.
Liz Berry
Eleanor Rees
Adam Horovitz
Kim Moore
Meirion Jordan
In its first year the Versopolis project will promote 55 authors and their poetry, united under its motto ‘where poetry lives’, along with 11 festivals, which will act as literature promoters and publishers in the European literary space. The Versopolis platform involves the following literary/poetry festivals:
ARS POETICA, Slovakia;
GENOA INTERNATIONAL POETRY FESTIVAL, Italy;
?MEÅS INTERNATIONELLA LITTERATURFESTIVAL, Sweden;
INSTYTUT KULTURY MIEJSKIEJ (CITY CULTURE INSTITUTE), Poland;
LEDBURY POETRY FESTIVAL, Great Britain;
STRUSKI VECERI NA POEZIJATA (STRUGA POETRY EVENINGS), Macedonia;
POETINIS DRUSKININK? RUDUO (DRUSKININKAI POETIC FALL), Lithuania;
FELIX POETRY FESTIVAL, Belgium;
GORANOVO PROLJE?E (GORAN’S SPRNG), Croatia;
LITERATURE & WINE FESTIVAL, Austria;
DNEVI POEZIJE IN VINA (DAYS OF POETRY AND WINE), Slovenia.
Versopolis will help authors already established in their home countries spread their poetry across borders, its first and foremost aim being to promote European poets and their work and to create a close-knit poetic community.
Beletrina says it wants to see “not only canonised and widely recognisable poets reach the consciousness of European literature lovers”, but the voices of younger generations “also gain their place”. It added that the selected poets “will receive attention through performances and translations of their works on a digital platform”.
