So many conversations, messages, emails or letters sent to you or by you in the last months begin with these words. Hope is the final, ultimate aspiration that stays caught in Pandora’s box after all evil is being released among humans. Hope is a key concept of imagining a different, a better future in the most difficult, unpredictable and challenging times. Versopolis is organizing the Festival of Hope – virtual meeting with poetry and literature. Opening: April 23, 6pm UTC+2.

City Culture Institute, the organizer of the European Poet of Freedom Festival in Gdańsk, is one of the Verspolis member.

Together with about forty partners from 25 countries worldwide, Versopolis is from April 23rd onward hosting the diversity of the literary and poetic community. Partners have created new meaningful content or have carefully selected existing ones that deserve to be shared in this moment with a global audience. On the available digital channels of Versopolis and its partners an intense program for literature will be hosted. Starting on “The World Book Day” on April 23rd 2020 at 6pm, Versopolis managed to organise the first global virtual poetry festival that will speak of hope, future and possibilities. It is not about seeding false optimism in dark times, but about conducting quality content which addresses the most pressing questions.

The Festival of Hope will kick off with a panel on Thursday, April 23, 6pm with the title I hope, we hope. Talking at the panel are Ales Steger (Versopolis, Slovenia), Yan Lian (Author, China), Carolyn Forché (Author, USA) and Sharmistha Mohanty (Poet, India).

The Festival of Hope is hosted on the VERSOPOLIS Homepage
https://www.versopolis.com/festival-of-hope

The festival will take place online and simultaneously with numerous international partners and contributors, coming together at the Versopolis Review website. The main programme will go online in a day-by-day curated program from April 24th to April 30th with online events to follow.

Versopolis is a European poetry platform that creates new opportunities for emerging European poets and is supported by the European Commission’s Creative Europe program.
Versopolis Review is a platform that publishes self-reflexive opinions of a range of authors on urgent social, political, ecological and cultural questions regarding Europe.