The opening programme is one of the highlights of the Poetry International Festival each year. For this special evening, Poetry International invites a guest director from a different artistic discipline. This year, we\u2019re excited to collaborate with composer Merlijn Twaalfhoven, known for his large-scale, interdisciplinary music projects in unexpected locations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
For this one-night-only event, Twaalfhoven draws on the theme Word on the Street<\/em> to create a unique poetic experience where all 20 festival poets come together. It\u2019s your chance to encounter every voice of the festival in one go. The perfect starting point for your festival journey.<\/p>\n\n\n\n For this special occasion, Twaalfhoven is also composing a brand-new piece. Expect a musical-poetic journey. We\u2019ll leave the rest to your imagination.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":0,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"event_date":["2026-06-04"],"footnotes":""},"venue":[58],"event_type":[110],"route":[],"class_list":["post-698","event","type-event","status-publish","hentry","venue-theaterzuidplein","event_type-opening"],"acf":{"event_location":58,"event_location_source":{"label":"Locatie","type":"taxonomy","formatted_value":58},"hall":"","hall_source":{"label":"Zaal","type":"text","formatted_value":""},"event_category":[110],"event_category_source":{"label":"Categorie","type":"taxonomy","formatted_value":[110]},"language":["english"],"language_source":{"label":"Voertaal","type":"select","formatted_value":[{"value":"english","label":"Engels"}]},"spoken_languages":"Afrikaans, Arabic, Bahasa Indonesia, Danish, Dhuwal, German, Quechua, Serbian, Swedish, and Ukrainian","spoken_languages_source":{"label":"Gesproken talen","type":"text","formatted_value":"Afrikaans, Arabic, Bahasa Indonesia, Danish, Dhuwal, German, Quechua, Serbian, Swedish, and Ukrainian"},"subtitles":[],"subtitles_source":{"label":"Boventiteling","type":"select","formatted_value":[]},"has_interpreter":false,"has_interpreter_source":{"label":"Tolk NGT\/Schrijftolk","type":"true_false","formatted_value":false},"poets":[756,272,230,279,283,213,252,221,412,224,171,384,663,407,390,233,289,259,228,402],"poets_source":{"label":"Dichters","type":"relationship","formatted_value":[{"ID":756,"post_author":"2","post_date":"2026-04-01 09:15:21","post_date_gmt":"2026-04-01 08:15:21","post_content":"\n Merlijn Twaalfhoven (NLD) is a composer and writer and is known for his large-scale, interdisciplinary music projects, often staged in unconventional locations. He explores how imagination, play, and art can help address societal challenges such as democracy, inequality, and the transition to a sustainable society. He creates unconventional music and theater projects, and has worked in cities, conflict zones, and refugee camps. In his book Het is aan ons<\/em> (It\u2019s on us) (2020), he shows how anyone can activate the artist within themselves to solve small and big global issues.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Zo\u00eb McWhinney (GBR) is among the international top tier of Visual Vernacular artists. VV is an autonomous art form through which deaf performers can tell expressively without spoken or written words. Both the hands and the entire body serve as the medium. For poetry lovers, this is a rare opportunity to experience word art in a completely new way and to expand your sense of what poetry can be.\u200b<\/p>\n\n\n\n Hannah K Br\u00fcndl (1996, AUT) is a promising new voice in the Austrian poetry scene and writes socially engaged, form-free poetry. The fact that she is also a theatre maker explains why some of her stanzas feel like scenes unfolding before your eyes. Her experimental, sometimes absurd detours catch you\u00a0off guard\u00a0and suddenly lead you past Kim Kardashian and the mysterious life of the eel. From there, we loop back to urgent themes such as entrenched power structures and violence against women.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Pia Tafdrup (1952, DNK) is one of Scandinavia\u2019s most prominent poets. With nuance and precision, she addresses big themes such as war, death, hate and love. Yet her poetry remains light-footed, always leaving space for unabashed, sweeping romanticism. Who could possibly say no to that? During the festival we will also take time to delve deeper into her life story and what it takes to grow into a poet of such stature.\u200b<\/p>\n\n\n\n Lynthia Julius (1993, ZAF) is one of the most promising young voices in contemporary South African poetry. She grew up in the diamond town of Kimberley and writes in the Gariep Afrikaans of the Northern Cape, in constant dialogue with the Standard Afrikaans of the canon. Trained first in philosophy and later in Creative Writing, she is a poet whose work combines precision and layering with raw, uncompromising honesty. Julius refuses to be boxed in and writes with razor-sharp honesty about identity, power and motherhood.\u200b<\/p>\n\n\n\n Jan Wagner (1971, DEU) is regarded as one of the most important contemporary German-language poets and is internationally acclaimed for his craft. Poetry to savour, driven by sheer delight in language and layered observation. In his poems, something minuscule can unfold into an entire universe. You come for the humour and the fine-tuned rhythm, and you stay for his subtle questioning of time, mortality and our worldview. The fact that the Dutch translation of his internationally celebrated collection Stenen & Aarde<\/em> is released just before the Word on the Street edition of Poetry International feels like a small cosmic wink. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Radmila Petrovi\u0107 (1996, SRB) is a highly acclaimed Serbian poet at a young age, who believes there is no room for cowards in literature. She breaks taboos around sexuality, village mentalities and cultures of violence with brash and funny poetry. A longing for another world, for a different kind of youth, often pulses through her work, a selection of which is now being translated into Dutch for the first time.\u200b<\/p>\n\n\n\n Iya Kiva (1984, UKR) is one of today\u2019s most important Ukrainian poets and documents war from the inside. All the worst-case scenarios you might see listed on an emergency-preparedness leaflet, we live through in Kiva\u2019s poems. With clear, rhythmic verse, she shows how war seeps into everything: into her memories, her everyday actions, even into language itself. Her poetry is testimony, to record what might later be rewritten. It is her way of offering a consoling voice to her compatriots.\u200b<\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n","post_title":"Iya Kiva (UKR)","post_excerpt":"","post_status":"publish","comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","post_password":"","post_name":"iya-kiva","to_ping":"","pinged":"","post_modified":"2026-03-03 14:04:25","post_modified_gmt":"2026-03-03 13:04:25","post_content_filtered":"","post_parent":0,"guid":"https:\/\/www.poetry.nl\/festival\/?post_type=poet&p=221","menu_order":21,"post_type":"poet","post_mime_type":"","comment_count":"0","filter":"raw"},{"ID":412,"post_author":"3","post_date":"2026-03-02 17:12:17","post_date_gmt":"2026-03-02 16:12:17","post_content":"\n Dalia Taha (1986, PSE) was born in Berlin, but raised and based in Palestine. She gained recognition as a poet, teacher and playwright of works staged internationally, from European stages to the West Bank. In her poems she intertwines language and history with the reality of life in Palestine. The titles of her poems often begin with Enter<\/em>, after which she places a subject into our field of vision as if a character is stepping onto the stage: fear, love, life under occupation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Hendri Yulius Wijaya (1990, IDN) is this year\u2019s Artist in Residence at Poetry International and is one of the few openly queer poets in Indonesia, as well as a key voice in Southeast Asia\u2019s queer discourse. Under Indonesia\u2019s conservative regime, that takes a special kind of courage. Wijaya storms that breach with pen in hand and heart on sleeve. In his work he offers a glimpse into how the norms imposed by family, community and country can constrict, and where he finds room or carves it out for himself. Always with the same resolve to simply be who he is and love who he wants.\u200b<\/p>\n\n\n\n Aracelis Girmay (1977, USA) is probably your favorite poet\u2019s favorite poet. She is one of the most influential contemporary poets in the United States. Girmay takes you by the hand and zooms in all the way to the level of water being pulled up through roots, or else directs your gaze to what we so often look away from: violence, war, abuse, genocide. Always in a clear tone, with a singular kind of optimism and a love for people and for the world we somehow have to share.\u200b<\/p>\n\n\n\n Ra\u00fal Cisneros (PER) comes from the farming community of Pariamarca in Ayacucho, Peru, where he worked as a farmer, livestock keeper and baker before studying language and literature. He is the first poet ever at Poetry International Festival to write in Quechua, the largest Indigenous language family of the Andes. In his poetry, Cisneros intertwines Mother Earth goddess Pachamama, water, seeds and rituals with memories of migration and life in the city. As co-founder of the collective Estirpe de Ayacucho, he works as an actor, storyteller and musician on community theatre and arts education projects in Quechua and Amazonian communities. His book project Despidiendo Aromas<\/em> explores the return to mother, birthplace and community against the backdrop of pandemics and ecological crises.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Melanie Mununggurr (AUS) is a Djapu mother, poet, storyteller and performer from Australi\u00eb. Their work is deeply rooted in connection to land, language and culture, weaving Dhuwal language into poetry and performance as a way of decolonising literary and artistic spaces. With a powerful, grounded voice, Melanie creates work that bridges personal narrative and collective identity. Aase Berg (1967, SWE) is an influential and idiosyncratic voice in the Swedish poetry field and is internationally praised as avant-garde ecopoetics. Berg once addressed young poets with the words: \u201cForget your readers, forget recognition. Poetry is not about making connections. You do not have to be understood, you do not even have to understand yourself. Poetry is only an investigation of the incomprehensible.\u201d Berg\u2019s work is sharp, surreal and experimental. Tighten your literary sweatband for this intense listening experience. Let yourself be taken to the depths of the Kuril-Kamchatka Trench, meet its inhabitants and awaken in an anti-universe of language where you ask yourself: am I now human, animal or machine?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Caleb Femi (1990, NGA+GBR) is a poet, filmmaker and photographer who won major prizes with his first two collections. Femi writes about growing up on a housing estate in South London, its architecture and nightlife culture. In his latest collection, The Wickedest<\/em>, the reader experiences, in a poetic long take of a single night, a London Shoob. These are parties where living rooms turn into a club. Because Shoobs, besides being a place for music and dance, are also safe spaces for the Black-British community to share stories and support, Femi indirectly offers a glimpse into the harsh realities some attendees move through outside the door.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Dominique De Groen (1991, BEL) ranks among the most distinctive and outspoken voices of her generation in the Dutch-language poetry scene. With her understated delivery and raw wording, De Groen\u2019s work may at first sound slightly ominous. Attentive listeners, however, will hear an inspiring call to break free from an ecologically derailed system, from the grip of technology and from the everyday grind we have come to accept as inevitable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Kreek Daey Ouwens (1942, NLD) has had a quiet yet persistent presence for some time. She debuted in 1991 and has more recently gained wider recognition, receiving multiple awards. Disarmingly personal, she works with short lines that are laid like colourful mosaic stones, one by one, sharing childhood memories that feel both archaic and startlingly alive. Her minimalism gives listeners space to associate freely, while rhythmic repetitions offer a sense of footing.\u200b<\/p>\n\n\n\n Since 1 February, Nisrine Mbarki Ben Ayad (1977, NLD) has been the new Poet Laureate of the Netherlands. Anyone who hears her perform will immediately understand why. Mbarki Ben Ayad works with a rich palette of languages (Dutch, English, French, Arabic, Darija, Tashelhit) that coexist in her work as different ways of understanding the world. She looks at others with an empathetic, inquisitive gaze and dissects power structures and dominant narratives. During this edition of Poetry International we will revel in her performances and talk with her about the state of Dutch poetry.\u200b<\/p>\n\n\n\n Ever since Joost Baars (1975, NLD) won the VSB Poetry Prize with his debut Binnenplaats<\/em> in 2018, things seemed to go quiet. Until now. At the 56th edition of Poetry International he will present, for the very first time, new work from his forthcoming collection, due in May. This is poetry to sit with for a moment and really let sink in: mystical, intense and slightly hallucinatory. Baars has graced Poetry International before (49th edition), but we are wildly curious to hear what has taken root in eight years of book silence and how it will sound.\u200b<\/p>\n\n\n\n J\u00f6rgen Gario (1987, SXM+NLD), also known as UNOM, is a spoken word artist and multidisciplinary artist, born in Sint Maarten and based in the Netherlands. He writes in Dutch, English and Papiamentu. His work revolves around human connection, despite systems, politics or the ego sometimes standing in the way. Rooted in history, nature and heritage, UNOM searches for what brings us together. Language forms the core of his work, but he also uses guitar, ukulele, synthesizers and electronic elements in his performances, where reggae and dancehall influences subtly resonate. <\/p>\n","post_title":"J\u00f6rgen Gario (SXM+NLD)","post_excerpt":"","post_status":"publish","comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","post_password":"","post_name":"jorgen-gario","to_ping":"","pinged":"","post_modified":"2026-03-03 14:15:54","post_modified_gmt":"2026-03-03 13:15:54","post_content_filtered":"","post_parent":0,"guid":"https:\/\/www.poetry.nl\/festival\/?post_type=poet&p=402","menu_order":15,"post_type":"poet","post_mime_type":"","comment_count":"0","filter":"raw"}]},"hosts":"","hosts_source":{"label":"Hosts","type":"relationship","formatted_value":""},"day":"thursday","day_source":{"label":"Dag","type":"select","formatted_value":"Donderdag"},"doors_open":"19:30:00","doors_open_source":{"label":"Deuren 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