This year's Poetry Day festival is the 8th and will be celebrated from 9th-23rd November in over forty towns and villages in the Czech Republic.
The aim of the festival - whose theme this year is Kde domov můj ? – is to celebrate poetry in our lives and in the Czech tradition and takes place around the 16th of November - the anniversary of the birth of the great Romantic poet, K. H. Mácha, born in 1810 (and this year is also the 170th anniversary of his death on November 6th 1836). The celebrations involve readings, happenings, art, music and theatre in clubs, libraries, schools, cinemas, cafes, as well as in less traditional places...
This year's poetry day will have special events for young people in Prague on November 11th, with a trail through the city beginning at the observatory on Petrin Hill and in the Dum u Kamenneho zvonu on Old Town Square and ending at the Czech Centre in Rytirska Street - with plenty of adventures, prizes and opportunities to learn about poetry and be creative along the way. All these events are free of charge.
As well as readings by leading Czech poets there will also be many foreign guests joining in the celebrations, with readings in Romanian, Hungarian, Russian, Lusatian, Irish, English, Hebrew, German and Spanish.
We hope that you will enjoy some of the events near you - either as audience or participants.
This year there are events in many towns, including:
Bohumín, Blansko, Březnice, Brno, Česka Lípa, České Budějovice, Domažlice, Dvůr Králové, Havířov,
Horšovský Týn, Hradec Králové, Cheb, Chodov, Chomutov, Jičín, Kadaň,
Kroměříž, Krnov, Kyjov, Liberec, Náchod, Nepomuk, Nova Paka, Nová
Včelnice, Nové Město nad Metují, Olomouc, Ostrava, Plzeň, Police nad Metují.,
Praha, Přerov, Rakovník, Rumburk, Strážov, Třeboň, Vaňovské vodopády,
Veselí nad Moravou, Vlachovo Březí, Žatec, Znojmo
