My Body, My Poem

“our reproduction arouses their hatred, not their recognition”
 _{- Athena Farrokhzad}

‘The body is the most imaginary of all imaginary objects’ wrote French philosopher Roland Barthes. Turkish poet Gonca Özmen, who features at this year’s festival, used this quote as the motto for her poetic essay ‘my lover, my body’. This essay, and pieces written by poets Athena Farrokhzad (Sweden/Iran) and Threa Almontaser (USA/Yemen), will give the body maximum poetic freedom in MY BODY, MY POEM. These three poets link the body – fragile, meaningful and never indifferent or insignificant – with poetry, each in their own way. This is in the content of their work, but of course also takes shape in the performative quality of their readings. In addition to the poetry by these poets, poetry will also be presented embedded in some vocal pieces that the classically trained singers Laura Bohn and Cora Burggraaf created together with and on the basis of libretto poetry by the poets Asha Karami and Mischa Andriessen. The pieces, first results of the Librettolab that Poetry International did together with O., will premiere this evening.

MY BODY, MY POEM will be a poetic show with poems, film and music that resonates in your corporeal presence: Open your ears and let your body do the work!

Host: Jasper Henderson