Another event in the run-up to the Malta Mediterranean Literature Festival, taking place between Thursday and Saturday, is a discussion entitled ‘Poetry as public space’.
Despite the unprecedented ease and speed with which poetry can be published and spread today, the conviction that poetry can be an agent of political change in turbulent times may be seen as increasingly more difficult to maintain.
The discussion will try to tackle questions as: Does poetry still have a role to play as a collective good? How effective can poetry be today as a space for social or political discourse, for a solidarity that goes beyond the symbolic, within or across national boundaries?
Antoine Cassar will be the moderator between Tunisian poet Lilia Ben Romdhane and Macedonian author of poetry, short prose and essays, Gjoko Zdraveski. Ben Romdhane has a particular interest in viewing the public domain as a living space. For the past five years, she has chosen to follow the Tunisian public sphere, performing in Tunisian dialect and thus creating a special relationship with both ‘the Tunisian’ as a phenomenon, and the complex and undetermined post-revolution Tunisia.
This year, she performed at the Venice Biennale, as part of the Tunisian pavilion’s installation The Absence of Paths, focusing on questions of nation-State borders and migration.
Zdraveski has published four books of poetry: Palindrome with Double ’N’ (2010), House for Migratory Birds (2013), Belleove (2016), and Daedicarus Icaral (2017). His poetry has been translated into several European languages. He has participated in several European poetry festivals, including Festival Voix Vives (Sète, France) and the Ledbury Poetry Festival (England).
Since 2015, he has been a part of Versopolis, a European poetry platform that creates new opportunities for emerging poets, supported by the Creative Europe programme.
The interview and discussion will take place in English. Ben Romdhane’s answers in French will be translated into English by Claudine Borg.
The discussion is taking place tomorrow at the Malta School of Art in Old Bakery Street, Valletta, at 8pm. Entrance is free. For more information about the event, visit the Poetry as Public Space event page on Facebook and for more information about the festival, visit www.inizjamedmalta.wordpress.com.