Name of the project: Poets of Today – Voices of Tomorrow

Short name: POT-VOT

Project duration: September 1st 2022 – March 31 2025 (31 months)

Project coordinator: Pionirski dom – Center za kulturo mladih (SI)

Project partners: Hartefakt fondacija (RS), Fundacja ARTeria (PL), PRO PROGRESSIONE KULTURALIS NONPROFIT KOZHASZNU KFT (HU), Association of Finnish Children’s Cultural Centers / Suomen lastenkulttuurikeskusten liitto (FI)

POT-VOT is a cooperation project of 5 project partners, which will bring poetry and contemporary poets closer to young people, teachers, and local communities in all partner countries. The main goal of the project is the development of new performative poetic forms. The artistic team in each partner country will be in charge of creating an artistic poetry-educational program. The target groups are contemporary, established poets, high school teachers and high school students, who will connect through poetry events that will be held at their schools, as well as the wider local community.

Throughout the project, we also plan literary events, round tables and two conferences. With all the events, we want to shed light on the importance of reading in school and the connection between performing arts and poetry. We are also planning to publish two books: the first book will be a pedagogical tool, which will include poems by poets who will participate in the workshops and will search for new literary performative forms together with the artistic teams, and the second book will be a catalog for foreign representatives with poems by the main five poets of the project. 20 artists will explore the potential of poetic performance, share innovative methodology with 50 poets, 100 school teachers and reach more than 5000 young audience members (high school students) from all 5 participating countries. The international poetry collective will become an influencer of the methodological process, perform in 5 different countries and present the work process and the potential of different forms of the poetry evenings at the Frankfurt Book Fair. 50 poets will be empowered to perform in schools and connected with high school teachers to start practicing regular presentation of poetry and poets in schools. The most important result will be 50 literary events at schools – Poetry Days. To support the recognition of poets, active literary events will be organized – 5 Poetry City Walks events: connecting poetry with life in the community and offering quality cultural programs for cities with an emphasis on new performative forms of poetry. The project will ensure gender equality and will have a strong focus on environmental sustainability. One of the most important results will be a draft of manifesto that will serve as a proposal for decision makers for more poetry in schools.