Poetica - Festival für Weltliteratur

In the organizer's words:

Poetica is an international literature festival that has been held annually in Cologne since 2015. It is organized by the University of Cologne in cooperation with the German Academy for Language and Poetry and cultural institutions of the city of Cologne and focuses in particular on poetry as a marginalized genre of world literature. An author curates and moderates the festival and invites up to ten prominent poets from all over the world to speak on a central theme. The initial idea for the Poetica was that literature forms knowledge just as much as the sciences and that the comparison of aesthetic ideas in a dialog between poets and scientists provides excellent access to understanding different cultures and their potentially different answers to central questions of existence.

Poetica is characterized by the presence of all authors at the events of the festival week as well as the diversity of its venues and formats, from discussions at the university and a writing workshop for students to readings and the staged performance of poetry at Schauspiel Köln. At all events, the literary texts are read in the original language by the authors and in German by actors. The moderations are usually in English and German. The main texts and essays are documented in a book publication that will be available on the opening evening of Poetica.

Poetica is funded by the University of Cologne, the Ministry of Culture and Science of the State of North Rhine-Westphalia and the Kunststiftung NRW.