The 3rd International Poetry Festival “PAGE BREAK” will take place in Jelgava from 24 to 27 of April. The poetry festival offers the first-hand poetry of renowned international authors, with a special emphasis on cultural diversity.
On April 24, the festival will start with poetry readings in various locations throughout Jelgava city:
- At 7 p.m. in the courtyard of the Holy Trinity Church tower
- At 7.30 p.m. on Pasta Island
- At 8 p.m. at the observation tower on Pilssala.
On April 25 and 26 at 6 p.m., public poetry readings are scheduled at the Great Hall of the Jelgava Culture House. On April 25 at 12 noon poetry readings will take place for youngsters at the Jelgava State Gymnasium and the Jelgava Spīdola State Gymnasium. On April 26 at 16 a round table discussion for poetry enthusiasts will take place in the Great Hall of Jelgava Culture House.
The festival will close on April 27 at 6 p.m. with a poetry concert at Jelgava Culture House, gathering all participation of the festival. This event will mix poetry readings with contemporary jazz music improvisations performed by Svens Vilsons (guitar), Toms Mikāls (keyboards), Toms Pošs (bass) and Rūdolfs Dankfelds (percussion). The concert will also be streamed live on www.lsm.lv and on the festival’s Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/pagebreakfestival.
The festival’s amin theme is Empathy. It arose from the geopolitical and social events and recently highlighted topic of violence in Latvia and elsewhere. The intention was to strengthen democratic and human values through poetry and culture while highlight the importance of global events and even more so – of empathy – in our lives.
The main distinction of this festival compared to other poetry festivals is that “PAGE BREAK” strives to attract new participants every year, allowing visitors to discover new poets and distinct cultures. An anthology of poetry by all the authors with Latvian translation will be available at the festival – distributed free of charge.
This year the poetry festival gathers 14 authors, including two from the Nordic countries – Ásta Fanney Sigurðardóttir from Iceland and Susinukke Kosola from Finland.
Ásta is a poet, artist and musician. In 2017, she received an award in the prestigious Icelandic poetry competition Ljóðstafur Jóns úr Vör for a previously unpublished poem. In 2019, her first poetry collection Eilífðarnón (Eternity) was published. Susinuke Kosola also tends to combine different artistic genres in his work. His emotionally deep poetry is often provocative and breaks the usual format of poetic content. He has published four collections of poetry and has also created a 3D poetry object.
Other festival contributors: Katharina Schultens from Germany, Nikola Madzirov from Northern Macedonia, Pierre Wenkler from France, Maria Ángeles Pérez-Lopez from Spain, Selahattin Yolgiden from Turkey, Somali poet Lubi Barre, Afghan poet Ramin Mazhar, Iranian poet Sholeh Wolpé from the US, and US poet-in-residence André Naffis-Sahely, who has Iranian and Italian roots. Latvian poets: Jeļena Glazova, Guntars Godiņš and Kārlis Vērdiņš.
The festival “PAGE BREAK” is organised by the association “I DID IT” in cooperation with Jelgava Municipality. The event is supported by the State Culture Capital Foundation, the French Institute in Latvia, the Spanish Embassy in Latvia, Acción Cultural Española, Jelgava Printing House, and the Nordic Council of Ministers’ Office in Latvia. Informational supporters: LSM.lv, Latvijas Radio, TVNET, and Latvian Literature.
Free admission.
The programme is available here (in Latvian).
