A free port for the word
A report from the Poetry International Festival Rotterdam
“There are poets, silenced or not, whose voices are sharper than government statements.”
“Poetry International wants to give an ear to the human voice” (Adriaan van der Staaij, trans. Matthee)
In June of this year, Rotterdam’s Poetry International took place for the 55th time. What makes this poetry festival special and how does it adapt to the changes of our time?
The Poetry International festival was founded in 1970, probably inspired by a number of initiatives at the time, such as Allen Ginsberg’s performance at Albert Hall five years earlier, the launch of London’s Poetry International and the Festival dei Due Mondi in Spoleto (Italy). The then brand-new director of the Rotterdam Art Foundation (Adriaan van der Staaij) saw an opportunity to promote Rotterdam as a “cultural freeport” with a festival. Together with the first director of Poetry International (Martin Mooij), he paved the way for the development over time of what was to become a unique festival: a festival lasting several days to a week solely dedicated to poetry with most poets and audience members staying for the whole event.
In its early years, the festival was characterised by political engagement, anarchy, and improvisation. It mainly consisted of poetry readings in the evening and a few spontaneous improvised poetry performances in the metro (for instance, by Ernst Jandl) or in the harbour (by Adrian Mitchell). That first year, translations were provided on the spot.
From the outset, invited poets have been coming from all over the world, representing a multitude of languages, and translations have been held in high regard. Until the 1990s, translations were even central to the festival. Translation projects were organised around the work of a poet (the first in 1972 focused on the avant-garde poet Paul van Ostaijen). The intention was that the poets participating in the festival would translate the text of the chosen work into their own mother tongue, regardless of whether they had any experience in translation, and participate in a kind of translation chain from language to language. Some called it “Chinese whispering”. Translation was considered to be a political statement.
Attention was paid to poets (or the development of poetry) on the margins of society. Among the guests of the festival were not only poets who had been in prison or in exile, but also those whose poems did not fall within the conventional definition of the genre, such as gesture poetry. This focus on marginalised poetry is clearly evident in the poem Allen Ginsberg wrote for Martin Mooij in 1979:
In Rotterdam, the Tower of Babel
rises unbombed to the rainy sky
today – many tongues babbling
their compleynts under grey clouds
An Indonesian poet came from black jail singing
A poet from East Berlin uttering Consonants
A poet or two from Russia, silent in absentia
Poets from America, poisoned by plutonium/
still Chanting Whitmanic vowels
Poets speaking natural French, utter Dutch
caroling in Japanese and Roumanian
muttering in German, soothsaying in
African syllables –
What human music emerges from the Tower of Babel?
In MIND-museum the Babel Tower
sits silent thru centuries of heaven-breath*
Over the years, even the festival themes have been dedicated to poets on the margins. In 1992, for example, the theme was “The Year of the Monkey”, and Chinese poets whose work was censored in their home country were invited. In 2010, the festival aimed to call attention to poetry from the United States, which had been overshadowed by the events of September 11, 2001. There has also been a continuous focus on sign language poetry throughout the years. From the outset, the festival has been a clear cultural countervoice.
For this reason, and because of its sole focus on poetry and its large size, Rotterdam’s Poetry International has developed into a unique festival – even before the emergence of similar events in other locations around the world. During the 1990s, it was one of the largest, featuring 40 poets per year. The festival has also been known for being very well organised and for offering an international programme with high-quality translations.
Already in its first year, the festival featured young poets who later acquired fame, such as Zbigniew Herbert, Lars Gustafsson, and Ernst Jandl. Other poets who presented their work at Poetry International over the years include Günter Bruno Fuchs, Gerald Bisinger, Erich Fried, Breyten Breytenbach, Mersey poet Adrian Henri, Hans Magnus Enzensberger, Jon Fosse, Antjie Krog, Anne Carson, Ben Okri, Seamus Heaney, Derek Walcott, Édouard Glissant, Hone Tuwhare, Tomas Tranströmer, and Allen Ginsberg, to name a few. Not to forget the attendance of poets who had to keep quiet in their own countries, because their voices were not welcome or they did not fit in with the prevailing style of poetry, such as the Iranian Ali Abdolrezaei or Chinese poets Yang Lia, Duo Duo and Bei Dao. A recent collaboration between Poetry International and Versopolis allows promising poets to be translated into English and to present at the festival, like Radosław Jurczak, Danae Sioziou (Greece), or, this year, Diana Anphimiadi (Georgia) and Lyuba Yakimchuk (Ukraine).
The festival has undergone changes over the years. For example, in the 1990s, when Tatjana Daan took over the leadership, the decision was made to tone down the political dimension and to make the gathering of poets, which had become rather inward-looking, more accessible to a wider audience. Another important external development were the sharp cuts in the Dutch cultural sector in 2010, which also affected Poetry International and reduced the number of visiting poets by half.
Although political engagement has never been entirely absent from the festival (not even in the 1990s), a revival was noticeable this year. The global shift towards right-wing control and the increasing threats to democracy and human rights that are also becoming increasingly palpable in the Netherlands call for renewed attention to the political dimension of literature. This year’s main theme was “The Poetry Summit: Laureates and Legends” – an event reminiscent of a UN Summit. The aim was to formulate, during the festival, a Declaration for Future Generations – a manifesto on poetry. The most influential voices were invited to speak during various workshops about the status quo of poetry in their countries. These voices were mainly, but not exclusively, Poets Laureate, such as Simon Armitage (UK), Esther Phillips (Barbaros), Chris Tse (New Zealand), Patricia Jabbeh Wesley (Liberia), and Kwame Dawes (Jamaica).
But can poetry be captured by a kind of institutionalisation such as this UN summit template? Or does the power of poetry as a countervoice lie precisely in the fact that poets are too free-spirited to fit in? Over the course of the festival, the progression of the Poetry Summit gradually faded into the background. What became apparent though was the diversity of the different types of poetry and their audiences; an example of the democratization of poetry readings. While in one room, the Dutch Johan Polak Prize was awarded to the best Dutch poetry collection of the past three years (Waar is het lam? by Mustafa Stitou), in another, attention was given to sign language poetry by Ian Sanborn and Dana Cermane, and a lecture on the unique style of sign language poetry by Alicia Sort Leal. While former Dutch Poets Laureates talked about their commitment to Dutch poetry in a panel discussion, the current Dutch Poet Laureate Babs Gons organised a “hardop!” (“out loud!”) performance with selected poetry lovers who could recite their favourite poem (from memory).
Many different forms of poetry and poetry discussions took place next to each other, but also with each other? Does the festival, which over the years has been reduced from an originally week-long event to three and a half days, still feel like a poetry pub, or do the distances between the different genres increase? And what is the role of translation as a political statement in recent editions of the festival? Has it faded into the background?
While the urgency of poetry was, in fact, evident in many places, this year’s festival lacked an activity, or an event, that could have served as a gathering point for the poets and visitors from the different genres. Such an event could have been the reading of the final version of the Declaration for Future Generations, if it had not been scheduled for the very end of the festival, when the majority of the participants and audience members had already left.
In the Declaration, that continues the festival’s history of political engagement, poetry is presented as a necessary countervoice, and poets are said to be the chroniclers of our time. It is a call to critically examine the status quo and to bring censored stories to light. The trend towards the democratisation of poetry is also mentioned, as well as today’s young generation that is organising its own publishing houses and festivals. Perhaps this is the Declaration’s most hopeful aspect. For as long as poets retain a certain degree of anarchy, poetry will continue to live on as a counter-voice.
* As it appears on the signed and dated hand-written manuscript, see https://allenginsberg.org/2014/09/fridays-weekly-round-up-189/ (interpreted by M. Matthee, based on her reading of the manuscript and the Dutch translation by Simon Vinkenoog, see https://www.poetryinternational.com/nl/poets-poems/poems/poem/103-23764_FOR-MARTIN-MOOIJ).
Consulted sources:
van Hengel, Mirjam: Goedemorgen schoonheid, Special issue of the Groene Amsterdammer on Poetry International Festival Rotterdam 50 years, 23.5.2019, pp. 4-7.
Menkveld, Erik: Poetry International 1970-1999. Dertig jaar wereldpoëzie in Rotterdam, 42 Ons Erfdeel, 1999.
Monna, Janita: Herinneringen aan Poetry International. Spruitjeslucht, is daar eigenlijk een woord voor in het Noors?, Trouw, 9.6.1999.
Poetry International website: www.poetryinternational.com.
