European green poetry festival - Festival europeo di poesia ambientale

Testo in italiano

Environmental issues —as temperatures way above normal in recent months confirm— have became a priority. However, in spite of repeated calls of alarm, they do not get the attention they deserve. Poetry is trying to bring general attention to the defense of the common house through the voices of nine Italian authors and nine from other European countries who have decided to put together their poems in order to shake minds and launch a request for safeguarding the biosphere. In this context we present “Festival europeo della poesia ambientale – European green poetry festival”, an event scheduled for May 22 from 6pm till 8pm. The online festival has been organized by the journals Insula europea (www.insulaeuropea.eu) and Sapereambiente (www.sapereambiente.it).

Interacting inside a virtual room, the poets will read their environment-inspired pieces. The eighteen authors who will participate from their countries are: Antonio Manuel Pires Cabral (Portugal), Laure Gauthier (France), Viacheslav Kupriyanov (Russia), José Manuel Lucía Megías (Spain), Eliza Macadan (Romania), Jarek Mikolajewski (Poland), Marion Poschmann (Germany), Gerda Stevenson (United Kingdom), Charis Vlavianòs (Greece), and the Italian writers Antonella Anedda, Mario Baudino, Stefano Carrai, Donato Loscalzo, Valerio Magrelli, Giancarlo Pontiggia, Eleonora Rimolo, Francesca Tuscano, and Marco Vitale.

“We have arrived at a point when one cannot overlook what is happening with the environment and with our global coexistence in a stressed-out and overheated planet where the impoverishment of ecological resources allows for sistemic imbalances, as the jump between species of SARS-CoV-2 has shown —say the editors of the journals that organize the event, Carlo Pulsoni (Insula europea) and Marco Fratoddi (Saperambiente)—. But if the arguments of reason are not enough to have concrete measures taken, then let’s try with the arguments of emotional participation of contemporary poetry, showing once again that poetry is not only a field for artistic expression, but also an important tool to act upon reality».

The festival will be conducted by Angiola Codacci Pisanelli, culture editor of L’Espresso, and journalist and scholar Ilaria Dinale, expert in the relationship between poetry and new media forms. The event can be followed in streaming on the websites and social networks of Insula europea (https://www.facebook.com/insula.europea) and Sapereambiente (https://www.facebook.com/saperenetwork). There will be musical intermissions, also live, by pianist Alessio Sorbelli who will play his own compositions. Italian translations will be provided for texts in other languages.