STA, 22 August 2022 - Ptuj, the oldest Slovenian town, will be the main venue of the 26th Days of Poetry and Wine, an international literary festival that will host 20 poets from ten countries. The guests of honour will be Carolyn Forche of the US and Poland's Tomasz Rožycki.
"The festival certainly stands out in terms of the clarity of the concept and the names of poets that are coming," the festival's programme director Aleš Šteger said as he presented the event.
Šteger added that that the festival wanted to be a connecting point and an incubator of ideas, and that some new formats were being introduced this year, with special emphasis on poetry and rap.
"This is how the young Slovenian scene is being built and how connections are made with global trends," he added, noting the Evening of Rebel Poetry event that will feature literary historian Igor Saksida and hip hop and acoustic musician Masayah.
New curator Kristina Kočan, who previously participated in the festival in various roles, also as a poet, said she wanted that the selection featured authors who were generationally, culturally, politically and socially diverse.
"I have chosen authors who are independent and interested in new approaches, because I thought it was important to hear what modern poetry is capable of," Kočan added.
The idea was also to bring poetic voices from small languages, so the visitors will be able to hear poetry in the Catalan, Galician, Frisian and Irish languages.
The festival will continue the tradition of the Open Letter to Europe, with which selected poets point to the most burning issues. This year it was written and will be publicly read at the festival by Galician poet and activist Chus Pato.
More than 60 events such as poetry readings, talks with poets and translation workshops will take place in Ptuj and eight other towns, including Austria's Bad Radkersburg. The festival will conclude on Saturday with the Poetry of Wine culinary event.
