Poetas Festival Madrid

POETAS is a festival we were determined to create with Peru Saizprez 18 years ago, with a first edition in the cafeteria that no longer exists at the Alphaville Cinemas in Madrid. From then until today, it has been a wonderful journey, in which the festival has grown and the national and international poetry scene has grown. Poetry has come out of the book, it occupies a place in culture and leisure, there are festivals in various cities, and even festivals of other artistic disciplines program stage poetry. And the most relevant, the sector is gradually becoming more professional, which has been one of our main objectives.

As for this year's edition, POETAS is beginning a new stage with La Casa Encendida. After two previous productions, in 2018 with El Bombardeo de Poemas and in 2022 with El Cant de la Sibil.la, this year we are launching our most ambitious own production, Mozart's #Requiem, a reinterpretation of the first 8 movements, which are considered to have been composed by Mozart. It is a journey by contemporary musicians, artists and writers. The Requiem is a piece held in the collective memory of all of us, and in this case, from POETAS we wanted the audience to be part of it.

It is a journey along Madrid, from the Palacio de Fernán Núñez to the Casa Encendida, passing through the Real Conservatorio Superior de Música de Madrid and an urban garden Esta es una Plaza. The first three movements will be performed at the Palace, by a string quintet, a piano, and the Xenakis choir, of 30 voices. In the tour that Emilio Rivas will lead with his stage piece Take A Walk, there will be performances in various spaces, such as the Tuba Mirum with four singers singing live from the windows of the Conservatory or with a lighting installation in the urban garden. Finally, at La Casa Encendida, Los Torreznos will offer us their interpretation of Confutatis, and Tarta Relena and Sara Fontán will do so with Lacrimosa.

From Versopolis we have invited two great women poets, Babs Gons, a writer, poet, performer, and host. She writes poems, stories, columns, and articles. Gons made her debut in 2021 with her collection of poems Doe het toch maar (‘Do it anyway’), which was nominated for the Herman de Coninck Prize and the Poetry Debut Prize.  She is a sought-after performer and recites her work on many stages and festivals in the Netherlands and abroad, on radio and TV. She also hosts the musical-literary show Babs' Woordsalon, in which word artists "speak, write and sing to" current themes. Last April, it was announced that Babs Gons will be the new Poet Laureate of the Netherlands, from September 2023 to September 2025.

The second poet we've invited is Nina Dragičević, a poet, a writer, and a composer from Slovenia. She is the author of seven books of poetry and is the recipient of the 2023 Werner Düttmann Fellowship (Akademie der Künste, Berlin), the 2023 Dr Ana Mayer Kansky Award, the 2021 Jenko Award, the 2020 Župančič Award, two 2018 Knight of Poetry Awards, and was a 2018 Palma Ars Acustica finalist.