© AG Grafik
What do
a greyhound,
a cricket ball, and
a swallow tattoo
have in common?
What do
thunder,
a scar, and
rhododendron
have in common?
From May 15 to June 15, these themes will be explored at the Poesie Festival Berlin, which, in its 25th year, presents a city-wide pre-festival program and a main festival program at two venues for the first time: Akademie der Künste at Hanseatenweg and silent green in Wedding. At the same time, the ZEBRA Poetry Film Festival will take place from June 5 to June 8. With this extensive program, the Haus für Poesie will present poetry in all its forms for an entire month—ranging from readings, discussions, and performances to dance, music, visual arts, photography, and film, featuring more than 150 artistic voices.
The pre-festival program, running from May 15 to June 2, includes exhibitions, readings, poetic interventions, and film screenings. Various poetic formats will be hosted at diverse locations across Berlin, including daadgalerie, Instituto Cervantes, PalaisPopulaire, Kotti-Shop, Villa Oppenheim, Brotfabrik in Weissensee, and the Mark Twain Library in Marzahn.
The main festival opens on June 3 at the Akademie der Künste with the Berlin Poetry Lecture, delivered by the renowned U.S. writer Claudia Rankine, who is a 2025 Fellow of the DAAD Artists-in-Berlin Program.
From June 4 to June 13, numerous poetry talks, performances, and themed evenings—such as Writing Identities and Writing Ghosts—will take place at silent green. Over Pentecost weekend, more than 50 poets will read on the meadow of silent green.
This year, ZEBRA Poetry Film Festival, also organized by the Haus für Poesie, expands the transdisciplinary presentation of poetry by showcasing over 70 poetic short films from 33 countries from June 5 to June 8. The festival will feature 21 finalist films from this year’s international competition, along with additional curated programs in silent green’s Kuppelhalle.
Furthermore, on June 9, the transdisciplinary series Vocations – open space 2025 will kick off its first evening of the year.
For the final festival weekend (June 14 – 15), the festival returns to the Akademie der Künste. On Saturday, under the theme Writing Sports, various reading formats will explore the intersection of poetry and sports. Featured guests include Gustav Parker Hibbet, Declan Ryan, Rowan Ricardo Philips, and Moni Stănilă.
A poetry-sport experience will also be offered for festival attendees of all ages.
On Sunday, the festival will conclude with the Poetry Market, featuring over 40 publishers and literary magazines. There will be high-profile readings in the Buchengarten, more poetry discussions, and Weltklang – Night of Poetry, the grand closing evening featuring eight international poets:
Yevgeniy Breyger, Olvido García Valdés, Maricela Guerrero, Monika Herceg, Sasja Janssen, Helen Mort, Stella Nyanzi, and Rachel Zucker.
Starting in mid-May, the Poetry in Education program will launch an extensive participatory program for all age groups, including professional development for poetry educators, workshops and film programs for school classes, a collaborative chain poem, and much more. The festival will also celebrate the readings and awards ceremonies for a nationwide writing competition by the British Council and the Bundeswettbewerb Lyrix.
