Remaining city poets of Antwerp resign collectively
Antwerp will be city poet-free from Monday. After Ruth Lasters submitted her resignation in September for a by the municipality refused poem, also known to give back the city poets on Saturday. In letters and social media posts, Yannick Dangre, Lotte Dodion, Lies Van Gasse and the duo Prose-K (Yves Kibi Puati Nelen and Cleo Klapholz) criticize the city’s cultural policy — in particular the decision to suspend cultural project subsidies for three years. sets.
After Ruth Lasters stepped down in September, the other city poets consulted with the city council about the implementation of their role. “To look at the urban poetics can take the critical space that it used to have,” says Lotte Dodion to the Flemish broadcaster VRT. “What are the outlines of free speech, how should we proceed?” When, despite the mediation of the writers’ organization PEN Vlaanderen, no agreement was reached on these questions, the poets collectively decided to pull the plug.
‘pure promo’
It started like this. At the beginning of this year, the port city announced that it would appoint not one, but five city poets for the first time, for a period of two years. “To commemorate the formula of poetry in the city,” said the now-criticized alderman for culture, Nabilla Ait Daoud (N-VA), at the time with hope. A year later, the poets conclude that the experiment has not worked, and argue for “a strong word artist who can red the face of culture in Antwerp”, according to Prose-K.
Ruth Lasters already liked her taste in September, when her poem Ransom, about stigmatization in the Flemish education system, was not recognized as an urban poem. Slanderers also continue to work as a teacher and plan on a daily basis that they cannot cope with the refusal, she recently told NRC. She emailed it crystal clear that the urban poems only serve as a promo for the city and not as an expression of culture of literature.”
Also read: For the Antwerp city poet Ruth Lasters, she was refused Ransom not just a poem
‘Packed in book boxes’
The other city poets now denounce, each in their own way, the lack of interest and support of the city government. Yannick Dangre writes that it also happened to him “on several occasions that the reading of an ordered city poem was cut out of the ceremonial occasions at the eleventh hour”. According to Lies Van Gasse, poetry is the biggest loser. “The city will be packed in book boxes,” she writes her website.
Ait Daoud said in radio program The Morning “to take note” of the announced resignation. According to the driver, not enough time has been taken to reach a “new letter of intent”. The city council has made the decision to cancel culture subsidies “because we are facing a very serious cutback”, according to Ait Daoud.
Next Sunday, the departing city poets will step down from their position for the last time, at the Antwerp literature festival Crossing the border. They then recite their farewell letters, among other things.