In the framework of the German Cultural Spring, Sarah and I organised a Multilingual Poetry Slam on Thursday, 14 April, in the Latgale Central Library. Therefore, we could convince Linda Skranda, poetry slammer from Liepaja, to come to Daugavpils. After having offered a workshop to young students of the State gymnasium of Daugavpils in the morning, Linda presented two poems in Latvian and one in English during the slam and could convince the audience which designated her as winner. Daphne Toka (2nd place), a German student who did an internship in the RFZ of the University of Daugavpils, presented her poems in German, English, Italian, Spanish, French and Greek. Willi Stieger, a German volunteer currently working in Rezekne, talked- together with his colleague Brenda Pikuma – in English about discrimination, inclusion and stereotypes and introduced the public to his project “Visi kopa” (All together). Besides these international performances from performers coming from other towns than Daugavpils, some local poets were participating as well. Vitja Kuzmin (3rd place), German Fokin (presenting some very nice, surrealistic stories) and Olesya Sobolevska (who also presented one poem in English) also contributed to a wonderful and very poetic evening.
At the end of the slam, all participants received certificates as well as presents from the DAAD (German Academic Exchange Service), the German Embassy of Riga and the Goethe Institut of Latvia.
It was nice to see the young poets exchaning thoughts and ideas together and to see some new faces in the audience.
A big thanks to all the slam’s participants and spectators! And a special thanks to Nikolai and Fred for helping us to organise the event as well as to Sound Way for providing us with such a great technology (especially for this great microphone on stage) 🙂