Sha’ar International Poetry Festival 2011

The Helicon Poetry Society presents the Sha’ar International Poetry Festival which will take place from November 24 – 26, 2011, at Beit Hagefen Arab-Jewish Center in Haifa. Sharing and nurturing poetry and the arts, all events at Beit Hagefen will be free and open to the public.

The festival will open with the traditional multi-lingual marathon of poets, each reading in his or her mother tongue. On Friday, November 25th there will be a tribute to the founder of the Helicon Poetry Society in 1990 – Amir Or. The evening will include performances by Bhutto dancer Maya Dunski and actor Jonathan Schwartz.

Among the participating Israeli poets are:Ronny Somekh, Meir Weiseltier, Rafi Weichert, Aggi Mishol, Yitzhak Laor, Nurit Zarhi, and Raquel Chalfi. International guests from Spain, El Salvador, Finland, France, Greece, Turkey, the US and other countries will arrive to participate in the festival. On Saturday, November 26th at 18:00 there will be a lecture organized with the cooperation of the French Embassy in Israel and the French Institute, of “Poets of the Mediterranean,” including Titos Parikios (Greece), Ozdemir Ince (Turkey), Nuno Judice (Portugal), Serge Pey (France), Chiara Mulas (Sardinia) and several Israeli poets. On Sunday, November 27th there will be a closed event at the French Institute in Tel Aviv in honor of the festival.

This year marks the 11th edition of the festival, and will continue the tradition of the poetry Hyde Park. New this year in recognition of the tent protest movement will be a poetry tent, where the public is invited to display their poetry. The festival’s artistic directors are Yakir Ben Moshe and Adi Asis, with Amir Or in charge of inviting international poets.

Beit Hagefen, 2 Hagefen Street,Haifa 35662 ,Israel     Tel : 04-8525252