DECEMBER 10th - 13th 2020
We would like to inform you that due to the implementation of a new lockdown in our country and the increase in the number of coronavirus cases, the organizing and scientific committee of the “Jean Moréas International Awards” and the Patras International Poetry Festival postpones the date of the event on December, 10-13 of 2020.
Digital Event
The Patras World Poetry Festival 2020 this year is entitled "National Poets" and plans to host 60 poets from 15 different countries around the world.
This year the festival be held online and virtually, as far as COVID-19 impact affects significantly the implementation of this event.
In the four-day online event there will be 6 meetings lasting up to 3 hours, where the guest poets will be presented with readings in 2 languages, via live connection. The events will be attended by invited representatives of institutions and the jury, while the program will include speeches, presentations, tributes, music, etc.
In addition, the following activities will take place within the schedule of the Festival events:
The 3rd Patras World Poetry Festival 2020 is organized by the Poetry Fountation “Grafeion Poiiseos”, the literary website Culture Book (culturebook.gr) and the multicultural center Epikentro Plus History & Arts, while every year it is under the auspices of the Ministries of Culture and the Ministry of Tourism*. Supporters of the event are the Greek Library of London, the Cultural Center “Kostis Palamas”, the University of Western Macedonia, the Hellenic Open University and many other important institutions, as claimed under the Aegis of the President of the Hellenic Republic.
Awarding of Poetry Awards "Jean Moréas" for the year 2019
This annual event will be held digitally at one session of the PWPF Poetry Event 2020, with a presentation of the award-winning poets and recitations by them. This is the annual event during which the "Jean Moréas" Prizes are awarded for Greek poetic art and Greek poetic production in its entire range. They are recognizable nationwide and concern the poetry collections that were published throughout the previous calendar year from the year of the award. They refer both to young poets and newcomers and to those who are recognized with their poetic work along time.
The event is highly appreciated by the Greek literary and artistic circle of readers. In this year's event, in addition to the institutionalized awards, a very important foreign poet will be honored, who with his/her lifelong work honors the literature outside Greece.The Award Committee is composed of Greek University professors, as well as very important poets and poetry critics who will evaluate the work of the honorees.
Sincerely,
On behalf of the organizing committee.
Kotopoulos H. Triantafyllos, President of the “Patras World Poetry Festival”
Skiathas D. Antonis, President of the Poetry Fountation “Grafeion Poiiseos”
Alaniadi Maria, Event Manager of the “Patras World Poetry Festival”
Jen Webb, AUSTRALIA
The science of kindness
A history of speech
The Poems
The science of kindness [1]
It's one minute before the scheduled departure time and she is running up
the stairs and up the stairs, across the bridge and down, and as her left foot
hits the platform the train is there. Someone helps her on board, someone
moves up to make room, the doors close. She'll be home within a few hours,
fires permitting, and no clear idea of what is waiting for her there. The train
rolls through the suburbs and out into the wilds. The cat in her bag is
working its way free and the sun is going down, a silhouette against the
flames, and the moon is coming up, red on red. Her phone turns itself off
and she places it gently in her pocket, leans back in her seat, closes her eyes.
[1] Published in Messages from the Embers 2020
*
A history of speech
I like a door that sounds decisive when you close it a child who knows
precisely when to hang up the phone the historian who discourses on the
use of "hang up" for the phones we now use my rusting memories of
lying on the floor of my parents' bedroom spiral wired phone against my
head listening to you breathe while you listened to me breathe as though
we were rehearsing for a future we would not live to see.
Leaving love behind, you place the phone back in its cradle. Leaving love
behind, you close the door. So gently it might have been a breath.
The Poet
Jen Webb is a Canberra-based poet, who arrived here via South Africa, New Zealand, Canada, the Western Australian Outback, and Central Queensland.She is a distinguished professor at the University of Canberra, researching poetry, cultural theory, and creative practice. Her poems have been publishedin many local and international journals, and have been anthologised and translated; she is also the author of 5 collections of poetry, and 7 poetry pamphlets. Jen is co-editor of the bilingual volumes Open Windows: Contemporary Australian Poetry (2016) and Writing the Pacific (2007), and of the journals Meniscus, and Axon: Creative Explorations.