Patras World Poetry Festival

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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:

  • online Award of the annual Greek Poetry Awards "Jean Moréas" (Saturday December 12th)
  • Art Exhibition "National Poets" with the participation of 20 Greek artists and 10 artists from different countries (live and digital tour)
  • Collectible trilingual edition of the poems of the participants, in the first language of each artist, in Greek and English

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”

Anne Caldwell, United Kingdom

portrait.jpg-3-patras-world-poetry-festival

Anne Caldwell, UNITED KINGDOM

Slow Train North

Ferns and Voles

The Poems


Slow Train North 

Alice leaves King's Cross   and  loses her
mobile    signal.   She   sits   in   the quiet
coach    as    it    rumbles    through    the
hinterlands   of   the   capital.   Flats   and
terraced   rows   give   way   to   avenues,
semis  with   clipped  privet.   Here's   the 
Lincolnshire  flatlands  –  big  skies,  reed
beds,   wild   ducks.   Alice  listens  to the 
person   opposite    breathing,   to       the
rhythm   of   the  diesel  engine  and   the
whirr   of  an  old  heater  in  the carriage.
Her  coat's  heavy  with   it.   There's  her
reflection,  bunched  up  like  the   March
Hare  caught  by  headlights  somewhere
in  The  Wolds.  There's   the  warmth  of 
her face against glass. The Wash sprays 
salt through an  open  window,  and  that 
pull   north  is  stronger  than  ever.   The
Pole's magnetic embrace.

Maybe   she'll   cradle a   block of ice and
rip   the  skin off her fingertips.  But   right
now,   she's  reading Louis MacNeice and
this   is   the  'Slow Movement': the pause
between     opening     and   closing,   the 
allegro   and  appassionato. This is where
she   sits.  Between   the   city   and    the 
icebergs,   the   heat   and  that stretch of
winter.  No  sun  for  three  months. She's 
just   passing,   finding  joy  in   the   view
from   the   window:   wetlands  alive with
trout,     fireflies     dancing,       rookeries
chattering    and   their   offspring   plump 
with love.

Anne Caldwell. Prose poem from her
new collection,  Alice   and the North 
(Valley Press) November 2020



*


Ferns and Voles

Alice doesn't  have a   looking-glass but
there's   a   full-length     mirror   in   her
mother's  room and a cat that refuses to
smile.  She's  five and the world's full of
wonder.  She  makes  rose  petal tea for 
her dolls, rabbit  and stuffed  tiger. Alice 
has   a   den   in   the   bottom   of    her 
wardrobe that smells  of  plimsolls.  She 
visits a treehouse at Sarah's in a   crack 
willow where the branches fork and the
sky falls in. Henny Penny run, run! 


When it snows,  Alice   burrows  in   drifts
like    a vole and  the  world is  crystalline 
and   mauve.  Ice   ferns    her   bedroom 
window and  she doesn't  speak for days. 
She turns  six and a baby sister appears.
Alice  makes  a  new  den  in  the garage 
from  two  deckchairs,   a  broom  and  a 
grey felt blanket. She steals a packet  of 
her sister's Farley's rusks and eats them 
out there on the concrete floor. 


A chest freezer full of  lamb  carcasses
and   frozen  veg hums   in   the corner.
Somewhere in the house, her father  is 
curled   up   like   a    caterpillar   in  an
armchair, listening  to  Bach, his   head 
wreathed in smoke.



Anne Caldwell – Prose Poem from her
new  collection,    'Alice and the North' 
(Valley Press November 2020)




The Poet


Dr Anne Caldwell is a freelance writer and education specialist, based in England. She has worked for the British Council and is due to become a Royal
Literary Fellow next year. Her specialism is prose poetry and she is a keen walker. Her poetry has appeared in a range of anthologies and magazines in
the UK and internationally. These iinclude The Rialto, Writing Women, The North, Poetry Wales and Stride. Anne has published three collections including Painting the Spiral Staircase (Cinnamon Press). In 2019, she was co-editor of The Valley Press Anthology of Prose Poetry alongside Professor Oz Hardwick. Her fourth collection, Alice and the North, is available for pre-order from Valley Press. and is being launched in November 2020.

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