Preface

There will be other days, there will be other voices.
Cesare Pavese

From June 15th until June 21st , the Rotterdamse Schouwburg (City Theatre) will be alive with voices, words, sounds and images, exotic, familiar and everything in between. During the 33rd Poetry International Festival, the relation between poetry and music is a central theme. Many poets are music lovers and have written poems about some piece of music. Other poets accompany themselves on a musical instrument while reciting their poems, or sing their words accompanied by a musician or dj. Others again pay special attention to the sound of their poems and present their poetry in a "musical" manner.

Kicking the festival off to a sensational start will be one of the "fathers of rap", the renowned "Last Poet", Umar Bin Hassan. Next, an international parade of poets will read poems about music (or silence), some providing their own musical accompaniment. The last night of the festival will be devoted to the Song, including the ballad of lost or unrequited love. Poets will be interviewed about some piece or fragment of music they have written a poem about, naturally accompanied by the music in question. All during the festival week, actors in the Schouwburg foyers will recite poems that are actually songs.
Whereas music is man’s universal language, the festival this year will feature a number of "small languages". There will be poets presenting their verse in K’iche, Welsh, Livonian, Corsican, Milanese, Sursilvan, and Maya.

Apart from poet’s presenting their work and activities related to the central themes, the festival, as always, has lots more to offer. The well-known French poet Jacques Roubaud will present this year’s "Defense of Poetry" speech. There will be special presentations of new Cuban poetry, of the work of the Italian poet Cesare Pavese, and of that of the Dutch poet Cornelis Bastiaan Vaandrager, who died ten years ago. And in most of these programmes music will play an important role.

Familiar items in the Poetry International Festival programme have not been forgotten: five young poets will perform in a spectacular poetry slam. The latest crop of Dutch-language poets will present itself in a programme centering around the presentation of the C. Buddingh’ Prize for last year’s best début. Poets will be interviewed about one of their poems. There will be informal discussions between poets about burning questions they themselves will pose. In the Schouwburg foyer a "poetry professor" will answer your questions about specific poems or poetic problems. In this year’s "Chinese Whispers" event a poem by the Dutchman Remco Campert will be translated from one language into another day after day, and finally back into Dutch - resulting in an entirely new poem, most likely.

During the poetry readings, Dutch translations will be projected on a screen over the stage. English translations will be available in printed form. The publishing house of De Arbeiderspers presents a comprehensive anthology from the work of all the poets at the festival with Dutch translations. This anthology, entitled Hotel Parnassus, will be on sale at the festival (and in bookshops around the country).

Simultaneously with the main festival at the Rotterdamse Schouwburg, there will be the Poetry International Children’s Festival. The Children’s festival, for children between 8 and 12, will be held at the ro theatre in the daytime hours of 16 and 19 June. Poets, singers, musicians and actors will present a varied theatre show with poems and songs on the theme of "poetry and music".