PUISI 2012

What is Poetry?
"Naked words dancing together” (Adrian Mitchell)

On 1-13 April 2012 Indonesia will host the International Poetry Festival (Forum Penyair Internasional Indonesia). We are proud to have been asked to coordinate the preparations of the festival on behalf of the international participants. Our partners in Asia are looking forward to hosting writers from all over the world. Seventeen writers will set out for Indonesia, and together with thirty Indonesian poets, they will participate in the festival programme, held in 4 cities on the island of Java: Magelang, Pekalongan, Malang and Surabaya. Apart from readings and performances, the programme will include international panel discussions on a variety of subjects as well as cross-cultural events.

We have also been working on a particular translation project in preparation for the festival. Via our internet platform we invite all participants to discuss and work on translations of all the poems to be read during the festival. The finished work will be published as an anthology in March 2012: in the original language, in Indonesian and in English. (NB: Most of the translations on this site are provisional versions; the final versions will grow out of the discussion and will be available in the printed anthology.)

During the past couple of weeks our Indonesian friends have invested blood, sweat and tears translating all the poems. Now it’s time to start the creative collaboration. Many, but not yet all of the poems can already be found on our platform. It’s a work-in-progress-project. Step by step more poems will be added and all writers/ translators are invited to read and comment, to develop and discuss ideas. Our aim is not only to create the best possible result for a printed anthology; but we also love the idea of getting in touch with each other via poetry before we even meet. Welcome!

Of course readers are also invited to take part, to enjoy poetry and to explore what poets all around the world are working on. Non-participants of the festival cannot work on the translations but they are more than welcome to follow the discussions via a special access. Welcome as well!


PUISI 2012