Days of Poetry and Wine Festival

Contact

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Dnevi poezije in vina

Beethovnova 9/I, SI-1000 Ljubljana

http://www.medana.org/

info@medana.org

Phone386 (0) 1 421 4170

Founded byŠtudentska založba Publishing House

Events abroad

Past Events

• 30 Oct 2013

  to

  6 Nov 2013

  Japan Tokyo Kobe University,Meiji University,Rikkyo University

  
  programme

  
  

  
  

  Part two of the Japanese-Slovenian translation workshop (part one was organised during Days of Poetry and Wine Festival 2012) including literary readings by Gašper Bivšek, Milan Dekleva, Katja Perat, and Aleš Šteger, organised by Študentska založba Publishing House,

  
  

  
  

  
  

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The Days of Poetry and Wine is a festival that hosts the younger generation of poets from all over the world. Up to 2009 it took place in Medana (a village in Goriška Brda next to the Italian border) during the last week in August, basically turning the village into the poetry capital of Europe for a week. In 2010 the 14th edition of the festival moves to Ptuj, a historical town of Roman origin in eastern Slovenia, one of regional partner cities of Maribor, European Capital of Culture 2012.

Background and programme

The festival was initiated in 1995 by the Študentska založba Publishing House, Ljubljana. It has since expanded to offer more than just poetry and wine: it features numerous concerts, a selection of recent Slovene films, contemporary dance performances, street theatre, visual and spatial interventions, a programme for children ... Among its goals are to examine intersections between poetry and other art forms and to provide an opportunity for discussions between authors and local and international publishers on different topics.

The festival has also seen some notable guests: in 2009 it was attended by Rumen Leonidov from Bulgaria and Durs Grünbein from Germany. In 2008 the other poets were joined by Lars Gustafsson from Sweden and Paul Muldoon from Ireland (all of which are regarded as modern poetry classics). Študentska založba also took this opportunity to publish collections of their poetry.

Before the official start of each year's festival in Medana, the participating poets took part in an event named Medana before Medana and presented their work in other towns all over Slovenia. In 2009 poetry readings were held in Ljubljana, Ptuj, Padna, Vrba, Volče, and Krško.

A comprehensive multilingual volume of the participants' poetry and a special festival bottling of vintage wines accompanies each festival. The poems are presented on the festival website. A genuine contact is established between the locals and their guests, as full board and private lodging is provided for all guest poets of the festival, along with the expenses relating to the programme (the invited participants are expected to cover only travel expenses to Ljubljana).

International cooperation

The event has had many sponsors in recent years, including the Brda Community, the Ministry of Culture of Slovenia, and winegrowers from Medana. In 2003 it was one of five Slovene projects that received a grant within the Culture 2000 programme of the European Commission.

In 2010 the festival moves from Medana to Ptuj, whose location between Graz and Zagreb makes it ideal for international cooperation when it comes to both poetry and wine. The guests of honour will be Tomas Tranströmer from Sweden, Les Murray from Australia and for the first time also a modern classic from Slovenia, Niko Grafenauer.

See also

• Študentska založba Publishing House

External links

• Days of Poetry and Wine website
• Information about the 2003 festival funded by the EU, Database of Supported Projects by Cultural Contact Point Slovenia
• Niko Grafenauer on Wikipedia