Poetry Expo 24
/ 1 March 2024
Open Letter to Europe by Chus Pato
Days of Poetry and Wine
Poetry Expo 24
In 2017, Days of Poetry and Wine, one of the most prominent Central European poetry festivals, launched the Open Letter to Europe project. The letters from the project are addressed to Europe, or, perhaps, to the whole world, and aim to bring the language of art, thought-out, precise and rigorous, back to public discourse. Each year, the art director of the festival, with their team selects a preeminent poet or thinker and gives them the unique opportunity of addressing Europe and presenting the problems they consider the most pressing. Letters are always very well received and discussed by political decision-makers as well as the general European public and have been translated and published in more than 10 languages. All Open Letters to Europe are published at www.versoteque.com and as separate publications. They are delivered personally to all Members of the European Parliament, and the European Commission. They are published by major European media and thus carry significant weight throughout Europe.
You can read the 2022 Open Letter to Europe below.
To read more about the festival click here.
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Author
Chus Pato
(1955, Spain) writes in Galician and is the author of 11 books of poems, published between 1991 and 2019. Her books have been translated and published in the US and UK, Canada, Spain, Argentina, Portugal, the Netherlands, and Bulgaria, and her poems included in dozens of Galician, Spanish, and international anthologies. She has performed at poetry festivals throughout Europe and in the Americas, and her work has been honoured with various prizes, including the Spanish National Critics’ Prize and, twice, the Losada Diéguez Prize. Pato lives in the heart of Galicia in NW Spain, near the forest of Catasós, home to the oldest chestnut trees in Europe. Her most recent published book is Un libre favor, translated by Erín Moure as The Face of the Quartzes (2021). She is a member of PEN Galicia and the Royal Galician Academy.
Author
Days of Poetry and Wine
Days of Poetry and Wine is one of the largest and most recognizable international poetry festivals in this part of Europe. Founded in 1996 by Beletrina Academic Press, it has hosted more than 550 internationally renowned poets and young emerging authors. In addition to main festival's emphasis - poetry and wine - every edition of the festival also brings something new and small surprises from the field of music, visual, photography, film and other arts for all ages and interests. Festival events take place at several different locations throughout Slovenia, Austria and Croatia, but the center of the festival being Ptuj, a charming medieval town in Eastern Slovenia that greatly supports adds to the relaxed atmosphere of the festival. Days of Poetry and Wine have become an important reference for performing poets and a beloved destination for all poetry-lovers and professionals, not only from Slovenia, but from wider surrounding region. Since 2014, the Days of Poetry and Wine is a member of the European poetry platform Versopolis, supported by the Creative Europe program. More than 60 festival events, all of them admission free, attract more than 8.000 visitors every year.
