From Mácha and Cosmas to contemporary voices: Prague’s annual Poetry Day Festival kicks off
The 27th annual Poetry Day festival opens on Monday in cities and towns throughout Czechia. The event features public readings by Czech and international poets, theatre and music performances, exhibitions, workshops, and activities for children. Radio Prague discussed the event with one of the organisers, Bernie Higgins.
To start with the programme, could you share at least some of this year's main highlights, especially those that English-speaking visitors might enjoy?
"I think some of the international poets we have will be interesting for English speakers because some of them, at least, will be reading in English with a Czech translation. For example, we have two Welsh poets visiting — Literature across Frontiers, a UK organisation, is bringing them to the festival.
"One of them, Meleri Davies, writes in Welsh, but the other, Rhian Elizabeth, is an award-winning poet, and she'll be reading in English. We also have a fantastically interesting performance duo, Montenegro-Fisher, who will be performing their visual poetry. And I think that will be very interesting and unusual for the Czech scene.
"We also have a tour guide poet, who also does cultural tours, and she has offered to guide people around poetic Prague. She's offering two walks. One of them is at seven o'clock in the morning — we had to check with her to make sure we had the right time!
"So I think that might be attractive for early risers because it would be a wonderful poetic experience to walk around misty Prague at seven in the morning, with no tourists, finding out about all the poets who've lived in Prague and who've had some kind of connection with the city."
This poet you were talking about, who is going to give a guided tour — it's Lynn Davidson, if I'm not mistaken. What gave her the idea to explore Prague like this? Does she have any Czech connection?
"No, the festival is organised in such a way that we — we're called the Poetry Society, or Společnost Poezie — organise a central programme of Czech and international poetry. And a lot of people then join in. We're very open. We say, join the festival, come with your ideas.
"And she came with her idea. So I'm going to try to find out some of the answers to that question when I go on the walk with her."
One of the stops on that guided tour, I believe, will be at the Karel Hynek Mácha statue on Petřín, because as every year you are marking the anniversary of his birth.
"That's right. When we first started the festival, which in fact was a sort of pretext for launching the Poetry on the Metro project in 1999, we had just one day and we thought we would choose a very significant day for Czechs, which is the birthday of the great Czech Romantic poet, Karel Hynek Mácha.
"So a tradition since then has been that on his birthday we go in the evening, in fact— I know that Lynn will be taking her tour there as well — but we go in the evening, drink wine, and read poetry. Everybody's welcome to join. And that's on his birthday, which is Sunday the 16th."
Mácha isn't the only anniversary being celebrated this year. You are also commemorating other people. Can you mention at least some of them?
"Yeah, well, I suppose the main one is Viola Fischerová. And we chose a quote from her poetry, which is rather — not dark, but somewhat sombre. The title this year is helplessness or powerlessness is a foreign land. But it's been quite provocative, I think, for some very interesting events.
"And Viola, in fact, died 15 years ago. She was a great friend of the festival and used to be involved, either reading or also helping with a poetry competition we had for secondary school students.
"We're also celebrating Cosmas Chronicles with our traditional children's event, which is taking place on Petřín again at the Observatory. There will be lots of historical fun and games and theatre for kids. So we're remembering many others."
Finally, as you mentioned, the festival is now in its 27th year. How has the public's interest in poetry changed over the years? Would you say it is attracting more attention today or less than before?
"I think young people are approaching poetry in different ways. They like to share poetry on Instagram. They're into slam poetry. They combine poetry and music.
"I think one of the big changes is that the power of social media means that two or three people with a good idea who want to put on a poetry event can get publicity and gather people who are interested.
"So I think the tools of communication are making discussions about poetry and poetry events much more common nowadays, and more open."
