On 1 April, 27 thousand poems will pop up in Warsaw. The people of Warsaw will have a chance to slow down and ponder on the nature of poetry and the world around us. The event is being organised by the European Union National Institutes of Culture (EUNIC) in cooperation with the City of Warsaw.
On 1 April, 27 thousand poems will pop up in Warsaw. Poetry will populate the city space, including cafes, clubs and independent bookstores. This is a promotion of poetry that hasn’t happened on this scale in Poland before. Poems in the City is a project born out of the well-known Poems on the Underground campaign.
The presented poems have been written by 16 European poets, some of them especially for the project. Main theme of this year’s edition is Europe, with all its cultural diversity and present-day challenges. Europe as a community of universal values, home of culture and a space for sharing ideas. The poems stand for diversity of tradition, culture and ideas, while witnessing changes and processes that are taking place around us.
ORGANISERS:
European cultural institutes and culture departments of embassies, associated in EUNIC Warsaw: Austrian Cultural Forum in Warsaw, British Council, Instituto Camões, Danish Cultural Institute, Estonian Embassy, The General Representation of the Government of Flanders at the Belgian Embassy, Embassy of Finland, Goethe-Institut, Embassy of Ireland, Lithuanian Culture Institute and the Cultural Attaché of the Embassy of the Republic of Lithuania, Embassy of Luxembourg, Romanian Cultural Institute, Embassy of Slovenia, Italian Cultural Institute, Yunus Emre Enstitüsü.
ON EUNIC
European Union National Institutes for Culture (EUNIC) is an association of national institutes for culture from the EU countries. It is based on collaborative work of cultural institutions, but also on exchange of experiences and skills and working with local partners (including non-profit and cultural organisations), and with the European Commission.
The EUNIC’s mission is to promote European values, support cultural diversity, both within and outside the EU. The association actively works in various sectors, such as art, education, multilingualism, and intercultural dialogue.
In Poland, the local EUNIC offices are EUNIC Warsaw and EUNIC Cracow, which faciliate the collaboration of the local cultural institutions and Polish partners.
Eunic Warsaw gathers 16 members, 8 associated members and 15 collaborating institutions (such as cultural institutes – both local and embassies – and Polish cultural institutions). EUNIC Warsaw carries out a number of cultural projects every year – many of them have become a permanent element of the city’s landscape. Some of the most notable projects include: the European Langage Day, International Translation Day, or Spoke’N’Word Festival. Moreover, EUNIC is responsible for organising such events as international conferences: “Think (in) Visual Communication” (2014), or “European Discussions. Jews and Holocaust in European Public Discourse” (2015).