The European Poet of Freedom is the only Polish festival dedicated to the latest European poetry. We are constantly on the lookout for new developments in the poetry world, too impatient to wait for fresh voices to become established classics. We obtain our information and recommendations first-hand – from the translators, whose ears are tuned to foreign poetry markets.

A poem allows us to see the world and ourselves from a different perspective; it broadens our horizons, frees us from stereotypes, preconceptions and cognitive clichés. A poem is a lesson in empathy. It opens our eyes to reality and teaches us to take it with a pinch of salt. This is how we understand freedom as embedded in the name of the festival and the award.

We are about to enter the fifth edition of the European Poet of Freedom – this unique celebration of poetry is already ten years old. The list of this year’s nominees is very interesting, yet their poems remain even more intriguing, as they extract the universal truth about human beings from the shell of Icelandic, Azeri, Dutch, Armenian, English, Bulgarian, Finnish, and Moldavian.

Tadeusz Dąbrowski
artistic director
of the European Poet of Freedom
International Literary Festival

European Poet of Freedom programme >>