The Québec en toutes lettres Festival spreads poetry across all continents with La grande traversée poétique.
Posted: Tuesday Sep 29, 2020
20 countries - 200 poets - a unique event... and it's free!
From Friday, October 23, at 8 p.m. to Sunday, October 25, at 8 p.m. (continuous) online on the social networks of participating organizations.
Québec en toutes lettres: facebook.com/festivalQETL
Québec en toutes lettres unveils the first major event of its 11th edition. No less than twenty countries are joining the Festival team to create a major virtual happening bringing together more than 200 poets. La grande traversée poétique, an unprecedented event, will gather lovers of poetry who will be able to discover the works of poets from all cultures, in the comfort of their own homes. This year, the Festival will be held from October 15 to 25, 2020, and the team invites the publicto discover the full schedule on Tuesday, September 29.
La grande traversée poétique
The event will kick off Friday, October 23 at 8:00 p.m. (Eastern Time), in all 20 participating countries. It will run until Sunday, October 25 at 8:00 p.m. (ET). The authors will take turns on video to share their own poetry in French, English or the language of their country, in which case it will be translated. These short videos will be posted for free on the Facebook pages of the participating literary organizations. For twelve hours, the filmed readings and video poems of the 200 chosen artists will be streamed continuously on those platforms. The same content will then be available for replay until Sunday, October 25 at 8 p.m. Aunique opportunity to celebrate poetry's great diversity!
The Festival team has extended an invitation to many literary organizations. A total of 25 partners, including several cities of the UNESCO Creative Cities of Literature Network, have accepted the festival's invitation tot ake part in this poetic event. Quebec City, a designated UNESCO City of Literature since 2017, will be represented by a selection of a dozen local poets. Altogether, about thirty poets from Quebec will participate in the event.
This celebration of poetry brings together authors from 20 countries
Nora Atalla, Joséphine Bacon, Vanessa Bell, Sébastien Bérubé, Geneviève Boudreau, Nicole Brossard, Éric Charlebois, Anne-Marie Desmeules, Jean Désy, Laura Doyle Péan, Valérie Forgues, Mireille Gagné, Marie-Andrée Gill, Emma Haché, Lorrie Jean-Louis, Vincent Lambert, Jonathan Lamy, Annie Landreville, Tania Langlais, Thomas Langlois, Georgette LeBlanc, Aimée Lévesque, Baron Marc-André Lévesque, Paul-Chanel Malenfant, Judy Quinn, Virginia Pésémapéo Bordeleau, Michel Pleau, Mathieu Simoneau, Louis-Karl Picard-Sioui, Marc-Alexandre Reinhardt, Gabriel Robichaud, Jonathan Roy, Hector Ruiz, Émilie Turmel, Laurence Veilleux and several others will touch people's hearts despite the distance imposed by the current situation.
La grande traversée poétique is organized by the Québec en toutes lettres Festival, in partnership with the Bureau des affaires poétiques (Quebec), CLAC Mitis (Quebec), Festival acadien de poésie (New Brunswick),Festival de la poésie de Montréal and Maison de la poésie de Montréal (Quebec), Festival Filbleu - Festivalinternational Les lucioles bleues (Togo and Benin), Festival Frye (New Brunswick), Kwahiatonhk! - Salon du livre des Premières Nations (Quebec), La Factorie - Maison de poésie / Normandie and Festival Poésia (France), La poésie partout (Quebec), Littérature québécoise mobile (Quebec), Mémoire d'encrier and l'Espace de la diversité (Quebec), Nuit de la poésie de Québec (Quebec), Poetas del Mundo (Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, El Salvador, Mexico, Peru and Puerto Rico), Printemps de la poésie de Lausanne (Switzerland), Salon du livre de l'Outaouais (Quebec and Ontario), Tout à coup la poésie (Quebec).
UNESCO Creative Cities of Literature Network: City of Dunedin (New Zealand), City of Manchester (England), City of Nottingham (England), City of Odessa (Ukraine), City of Quebec (Canada), City of Utrecht (Netherlands) and City of Wonju (South Korea)
This event is presented by Les libraires, Quebec's independent bookstore cooperative, which brings together more than 100 independent bookstores from Quebec, the Maritimes and Ontario.
About the Québec en toutes lettres Festival
Québec en toutes lettres is an innovative thematic festival that contributes to the outreach of literature through an audacious program. The full programming schedule will be unveiled on Tuesday, September 29. All details will be available online at quebecentouteslettres.qc.ca
Québec en toutes lettres is an initiative of the Institut canadien de Québec. The Festival would like to thank the City of Quebec for its renewed support during this unusual year, as well as the Canada Council for the Arts, the Consulate General of France in Quebec City, the Government of Quebec, Canadian Heritage, the Caisse Desjardins de Québec and our other valuable partners who contribute to making this event possible.