This year, the Poetry International Festival Rotterdam turns 50! The milestone makes it the oldest festival in the city, and one of the oldest in the country, with a wealth of history and highlights. Nobel Prize-winning poets once stood on Poetry’s stages as bright young talents, and the festival is both a shining example for, and founding parent of, poetry festivals worldwide. Poetry International celebrates its golden anniversary with an extra festive edition at De Doelen, which also hosted the debut festival back in 1970.
Trailblazing poets will deliver transformative work thrumming with the now. Unique fusions of poetry by engaging artists from the worlds of music, cinema, and dance amplify the power, the beauty, and the personal impact of poetry, here in the form of an intimate reading or workshop, there as a multidisciplinary theatrical poetry spectacle. Right in the heart of the city, inviting, challenging, unmissable.
Since 1970, poetry luminaries from all over the world travel to Rotterdam for the annual Poetry International Festival. Thousands of poets have shared their work on the stages of De Doelen and the schouwburg, but also in the city’s squares, parks, and trams. A landmark anniversary like this is an invitation to look back and celebrate the past, but at the same time, Poetry International will be looking ahead. Under the title What Happened to the Future?, the 50th Poetry International Festival unites its rich history with the world’s poems and poets of today and tomorrow.
Pick your favorite festival day (or days!) or purchase a passe-partout so you won’t have to miss a thing. Buy your early bird tickets before 1 May for a 25% discount.
Join the golden anniversary’s kick-off celebrations!
Access to all readings and events on Friday 14 June (with the exception of workshops)
Access to all readings and events on Friday 14 June (with the exception of workshops)
Access to all readings and events on Friday 14 June (with the exception of workshops)
Access to all festival events (with the exception of workshops)
Together with extraordinary poets and poetry this golden Poetry International Festival presents unexpected acts in the field of music and dance. The eighteen times Grammy-nominated Metropole Orkest will set the festival in motion with a loud kettledrum stroke and will engage in unique duets with some of the performing poets as well as with The Last Poets, the godfathers of hiphop and spoken word, during the 'What Happened to the Future?' opening event.
![The Last Poets [VS]](/media/1/_resized/tlp_w800_h500_bgtop.jpg)
As pioneers of the spoken-word genre and precursors of American hiphop, the Last Poets have been a major influence and source of inspiration for writers, rappers and musicians for half a century. The group was formed in 1968, arising out of the civil-rights movement, and released their first album in 1970. Since then, the Last Poets – in changing constellations of band members – have continued to produce music and poetry that is always topical and politically provocative. Last year, twenty years after their last album, they – founding members Abiodun Oyewole and Umar Bin Hassan and drummer Baba Donn Babatunde – released Understand What Black Is, a strongly reggae-influenced record that ties into the Black Lives Matter movement. Of course these spoken-word giants had to feature on the Poetry International programme on the occasion of the festival’s 50-year anniversary.
![Metropole Orkest [Nederland]](/media/1/_resized/metropole_orkest_carr_2019_-_reinout_bos_w800_h500_bgtop.jpg)
The winner of three Grammys, the Metropole Orkest (MO) has expanded the meaning of the word “orchestra” – if the term makes you think “classical music”, you’re on the wrong track as far as the Metropole Orkest is concerned. What they do play: pop, soul, funk, cabaret, musicals, movie scores and world music, from the present day and further back. Over the past 74 years, the MO has collaborated with a host of big names from the music world, including Ella Fitzgerald, Brian Eno, Gregory Porter, Bono and Snarky Puppy. Headed up by young British chief conductor Jules Buckley, the MO is the last complete hybrid orchestra in the world.
De Grote Poëzieprijs LIVE in Walhalla
Elfie Tromp ontvangt Radna Fabias, Roelof ten Napel en Xavier Roelens. Gastcolumn: Ellen Deckwitz, muziek Bruno Ferro Xavier Da Silva.
Theater Walhalla Rotterdam
Zondag 28 april, 16:00-18:00 uur
De Grote Poëzieprijs LIVE in DE Studio
Christophe Vekeman ontvangt Maria Barnas, Joost Decorte en Radna Fabias.
Muziek Anne Bakker.
DE Studio Antwerpen
Woensdag 8 mei, 20:00-21:30 uur
Klik op de link voor meer programma's op weg naar de uitreiking van De Grote Poëzieprijs 2019, op zondag 16 juni op het 50ste Poetry International Festival.
The 50th Poetry International Festival will kick-off on 13 June in the Main Auditorium of de Doelen. On 14, 15 and 16 June most events will take place in or around the Jurriaanse zaal.
De Doelen is situated within walking distance of Rotterdam Central Station
Entrance Main Auditorium – Schouwburgplein 50, Rotterdam
Entrance Jurriaanse zaal – Kruisplein 30, Rotterdam
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