In the organizer's words:

"Dream Strong" celebrates poetry as a place where dreams take shape. Dreaming here means a gentle, visionary practice that creates relationships and shapes new futures. Where much seems rigid, language becomes a movement that changes the world by retelling it. "The woman is a construction", says Angélica Freitas, for example. She transforms her anger about patriarchal violence in Brazil into rhythmically shimmering verses. With laconic furor, she writes poems about queer bodies and nation - and rewrites the Western literary canon with relish with Rilke Shake and Der Uterus ist groß wie eine Faust.

The Palestinian poet Asmaa Azaizeh transforms loss into light. Despite the most painful present and war, she finds tender and striking images for warmth and the future. She writes "as a substitute for home", of existence under occupation, of mulberry trees and motherhood, of verse as a signpost "towards the heart".

In Postcolonial Love Poem, the indigenous US poet Natalie Diaz dares to love "and worse" - to "dream strong". Her verses flow, are sensual and political. Diaz relentlessly addresses the ongoing discrimination against indigenous people and demands that every body contained in the world - land, rivers, suffering brothers - be held like a lover.

Moderation: Rike Scheffler
The German translations will be read by Sandra Hetzl, Rike Scheffler and Uljana Wolf.
The event will be held in German and English.
In cooperation with the Academy of Media Arts Cologne and the Literaturhaus Köln.

Price information:

Tickets are available from the Literaturhaus Köln advance booking office at www.literaturhaus-koeln.de and at the Box Office.