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The Poetry Day Festival will be held from 5th to 23rd November in forty towns throughout the Czech Republic. Just like the previous years, this 13th edition will pay tribute to the Czech Romantic poet Karel Hynek Mácha. Poetry lovers will meet on 16th November at his statue in Petřín Park, to celebrate the poet’s birthday with reading poems.

A little morbid opening of the festival

This year’s festival has one more reason for a celebration, as it is the 200th anniversary of the birth of the poet Karel Jaromír Erben. This is why the opening of the festival will be held on Saturday 5th November at Olšany Cemetery with not only poetry, but also music. Later on, Vladislava Kuchtová from Tvar magazine will lead a guided tour through the cemetery, stopping at tombs of selected Czech writers.

The title of this year’s festival is The Freelancing Poetry. Organizers have decided to celebrate poetry in its wider sense, so there will also be poetic musical performances, plays and also photographic exhibitions. The programme is full of various events held in many different places throughout Prague, e.g. in Kavárna V lese, Dům čtení in Vinohrady, Malostranská beseda or the literary café FRA. For the full programme of events held in Prague, click here.

Poetry from different parts of the world

As well as readings by well-known Czech poets, thanks to the support of various foreign cultural institutes the programme features leading poets from abroad, e.g. from Slovakia, Romania, Poland, Slovenia, Hungary and Montenegro. Thus the visitors will have the opportunity to listen to the poems by the Syrian author Marwan Al-Solaiman, Russian poet Bljumental, Montenegro bard Čelebić or Hungarian poet Anna Szabó. Czech authors will include e.g. Ivan Martin Jirous, Jiří Dědeček and Jaromír Typlt. For the guest list and their profiles, click here.

Most events for free

Events have been organised by schools, libraries, universities, literary groups, clubs, theatres, museums and individuals as well as the main coordinators of the festival, Společnost poezie (The Poetry Society). The whole Poetry Day festival is supported by the Czech Ministry of Culture and Prague City Hall. Admission to most events is free. For more information, visit www.denpoezie.cz.