21. August 2023

Festival events in the first half of the week

The 27th Days of Poetry and Wine festival has started and will be held in Ptuj and in many other places in Slovenia and across the border until Saturday, 26 August. The first day of the festival will start in Petanjci, followed by events in Ljutomer, Ormož, Ljubljana, and Ptuj.

"Once again the Days of Poetry and Wine Festival remains an innovative platform that enables a valuable fusion of artistic practices, while putting both poetry and wine culture at the top. The central event space of Ptuj turns into a melting pot of diverse cultures, poetics and ideas, which enriches the entire Slovenian space," Kristina Kočan, program manager of the festival, briefly and succinctly summarized the significance of the festival.

In addition to Ptuj, which represents the heart of the festival, many other places, such as Ljubljana, Krško, Ormož, Ljutomer, Petanjci and, Dorava, as well as Potrna in Austria and Varaždin in Croatia, will host 18 poets from 10 countries. The main guests of the festival are the Swiss poet Ilma Rakusa, the Lithuanian poet Eugenijus Ališanka and the author of the Open Letter to Europe, the poet David Harsent, who will join us via video due to his recovery from surgery.

The first day of the festival will begin in Petanjci with the opening of the Vino-art art colony exhibition at 5 p.m. and will continue with a poetry reading by the participants of the Czech-Slovenian translation workshop. As part of this year's translation workshop, the focus will be on contemporary Czech poetry, and the guests are Czech poets Marie Iljašenko, and Ondřej Lipár, who will participate in Catalan-Slovenian translation workshops in the company of Slovenian colleagues in the first days of the festival. In addition to Petanjci, they will translate their poetry and present themselves to the audience on Tuesday, 22 August, in Ljutomer and on Wednesday, 23 August, in Ormož.

Eugenijus Ališanka, photo: Bartosz Frątczak Ilma Rakusa, photo: Giorgio von Arb

On Wednesday, August 23, at 7 p.m., in Švicarija in Ljubljana, it will also be possible to listen to an interesting conversation with the main festival guests - Eugenijus Ališanka and Ilma Rakusa. The conversation will be led by journalist Nina Cijan, who, together with the guests, will ponder, among other things, how the environment affects the creative process and how it creates unique poetic narratives. The talk will be followed by an audio-visual performance Laconism of the Wing.

The opening ceremony of the 27th edition of the festival will take place on Thursday, August 24, at 8:30 p.m. on Vrazov Square in Ptuj. Traditionally, the festival will begin with the reading of the Open Letter to Europe, followed by the Grand Poetry Reading. The evening will end with the rhythms of the Batista Cadillac group at 10 p.m. and Five to Midnight: Aurélie Maurin at 11:55 p.m.
(Batista Cadillac, foto: Matic Kremžar)

This year, for the first time, a festival wine, dry chardonnay vintage 2022 from the Vinag 1847 winery, will also be available dressed in a festival image. Along with the booklets and bilingual collections of guest poets, you will also be able to take it home in a pretty canvas bag with the image of this year's central illustration of the festival, which is the work of Hana Jesih.