Berlin Poetry Festival – Poesiefestival Berlin

A Festival for the World's Poetry

Since 2000, the Poesiefestival Berlin has been the annual hub for the international poetry scene in Germany. Organized by the Haus für Poesie at the Kulturbrauerei in Prenzlauer Berg, it invites poets from all continents – voices that can be heard on a grand stage in Berlin, often for the very first time in German translation.

Weltklang as the Core Brand

The core brand is the opening event Weltklang – Nacht der Poesie (World Sound – Night of Poetry): a three-and-a-half-hour marathon where around ten internationally renowned poets read in their original languages, accompanied by simultaneous German translations. Persian, Japanese, Wolof, Spanish, Latvian, Mandarin, Hebrew – Weltklang makes audible how different languages sound and how close poetry can be across the globe.

More Than Stage Readings

In addition, the festival thrives on numerous smaller formats: translation workshops where poets transpose their texts into German together with colleagues from other languages, urban space readings, performative formats, workshops on poetry mediation, and discussion evenings on literary-political topics. There is also the Poesiegespräch (Poetry Talk), a long-read format between two poets with a moderator.

Organizer: Haus für Poesie

The organizer is the Haus für Poesie at the Kulturbrauerei. The Haus also manages the online archive lyrikline.org, one of the world's largest audio archives of contemporary poetry. The Poetry Festival is part of a broad year-round program of readings, workshops, and awards, but is particularly visible as a major event in Berlin's cultural calendar.