E-merging Creativity
Ledbury Poetry Festival
European Platforms
England
2014

Versopolis - group photo

Total project grant (euros)
366,197
Percentage of budget funded
80
Programme
Creative Europe
Sub-programme
Culture
Call number
EAC/S17/2013
Project date
1 Oct 2014 - 30 Nov 2015
Number of partners in project
11
Partners
Ars Poetica o.z, Slovakia;
CIRCOLO DEI VIAGGIATORI NEL TEMPO, Italy;
Föreningen Littfest, Sweden;
Instytut Kultury Miejskiej, Poland;
Nacionalna Ustanova Manifestacija Struski veceri na poezijata, Macedonia;
Poetinis Druskininku ruduo, Lithuania;
Poëziecentrum vzw, Belgium;
Studentsko kulturno umjetnicko drustvo ''Ivan Goran Kovacic'', Croatia;
Unabhängiges Literaturhaus NÖ, Austria
Versopolis is a European poetry platform that offers new opportunities for emerging European poets and aims to create a unique, Europe-wide platform where these poets can be profiled. In its first year, Versopolis promotes 55 authors and their poetry, united under its motto ‘where poetry lives’, along with 11 festivals, which will act as literature promoters and publishers in the European literary space. The platform helps authors who are already established in their home countries to spread their poetry across borders, its first and foremost aim being to promote European poets and their work and to create a close-knit poetic community.
Versopolis is a Europe-wide poetry platform of renowned literary festivals, exposing, connecting and bringing the finest poetry closer to audiences and through collaboration and mutual enrichment adding value and a sustainable vision of the initial European idea. There are four strands of activity:
FOCUSING
We wish the voices of generations not yet established in the European area were in the conscience of European literature lovers, not only the canonised and famous poets. The selected authors will receive attention through performances and translations of their works on the digital platform.
CONNECTING
The project includes renowned European literary festivals with an undeniable affinity to poetry. The authors circulate around the festivals, presenting themselves to poetry lovers and professionals. The connecting goes in different directions: between the festivals, the authors, the authors and the public, and between the authors and publishers, editors.
BRINGING CLOSER
The project addresses the widest European audience, sensitizing it to the highly individualised language of poetry, and to the specific national characteristics and backgrounds of the guest authors. The PR strategies include contemporary and original approaches to domesticate the language of poetry, which remains barricaded in the academic spheres. The platform will play an important role in this by including the existing and new audience.
CREATING
We follow opinions, visions, views, at the highest level; we place focus on common European values, creating an integrated European poetry identity. The collaborations are joined in creating an original perspective of poetry festivals for a joint future collaboration.