Poetry Expo 26
/ 1 March 2026
Versopolis Podcast #37: Poetic Infrastructures
Matic Ačko
Poetry Expo 2026
Matic Ačko is a former Slovenian poetry slam champion. He explores the dynamic relationship between poetry, body and audience, contrasting the intimacy of the page with the immediacy of performance, discerning between slam and page poets. Slam poetry is an art form that demands presence: when you forget a line on stage, you cannot freeze but must move forward. This pressure transforms poetry into a practice of resilience, spontaneity and trust in the body. It is in this endeavor that poetry becomes a responsive infrastructure for connection, reclaiming space and building commons.
Matic Ačko is a designer, photographer, poet and hobby musician from Maribor where he currently lives. He is a former Slovenian poetry slam champion and has thus represented Slovenia at the European (2021) and the World Poetry Slam Championship (2022). He also organises poetry slam events as the sitting president of the Maribor slam group named ‘Slam beasts’. His first book of poetry titled Requiem for Snow was published in February 2024. Furthermore, his poetry has been published in multiple magazines and anthologies.
Author
Versopolis
Launched in 2014, Versopolis is a European poetry platform with a vision to create new opportunities for emerging European poets, build bridges between different languages and cultures, discover the Other and share the power of poetry, while connecting communities around the world. Versopolis wants to step out of narrow national and linguistic contexts and create new and unprecedented spaces of freedom, while making it possible for poets to meet and share with the world the truth of words, rhythm and sound.
