Patras World Poetry Festival

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

Patras World Poetry Festival PWPF 2020

Τετάρτη, 04 Νοεμβρίου 2020

0 Σχόλια

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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ANNE CALDWELL