Versopolis Platform

Versopolis platform

Versopolis came to life in 2014 as a European poetry platform that creates new opportunities for emerging European poets. It is supported by the European Commision’s Creative Europe programme. It has been selected at two Support to European platforms’ open-calls and certainly envisions further collaboration.

As a European poetry platform, Versopolis creates new opportunities for emerging European poets. This creation is financially and organisationally concrete. Versopolis supports translation of a selection of emerging poets’ works into English and other European languages. It enables the publication of these works in printed booklets, in e-books and on the Versopolis website alongside full profile descriptions. Versopolis also supports poets’ mobility by organising a number of guest appearances at different European literary festivals. This creates countless opportunities for networking with foreign publishers, literary agents, the press and other actors in the field of literature. Needless to say, this helps these brilliant artists to make a breakthrough in the European and global poetry scene.

By the end of 2020, we offered opportunities to 271 European poets from 39 countries, writing in 32 languages. By the end of 2021 that number will rise to 321 poets!

From the outset, during the first year of the platform project, there were 11 festivals which promoted 55 poets. In the sixth year, namely, in 2019/2020, 23 European festivals joined the platform project. Since the end of 2020, Versopolis is 30 festivals heavy, which makes it the largest poetry platform in the world.

 

Versopolis' Initiatives

As a reaction to the Covid-19 pandemic, Versopolis developed a digital gathering called the Festival of Hope in March 2020. With over 100 partners from all across the globe, from China to North America, it became a very successful endeavor.

In the beginning of 2021, the second edition of the Festival of Hope was launched.

In January 2022, the Versopolis team will launch the already third initiative under the title Brave New Literatures.

 

Versopolis' Webpage

Versopolis' webpage is a document of the project's activities. It hosts a large poetry database, featuring all selected Versopolis poets, as well as a thorough presentation of translators and platform member festivals.

The webpage is not only a project document, though. It offers new writing on diverse topics procured by select guest editors and authors from all respective platform members' countries.

We serve interviews, reportages, columns, essays and reviews. So far, we have also published 8 freely available e-books, as well as the Versopolis Manual and the Versopolis Anthology (Arc Publications, 2020). In the future, we will enhance our content with Versopolis podcasts.