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THE FESTIVAL
franco-anglais de
poésie originates in 1976 at
Marly-le-Roy, where resident English poet,
Lindy Henny, created an international
festival of poetry, "The Festival of
French English Spoken Poetry". Orientated
towards spoken poetry, this festival
presented four very lively annual events
from 1976 to 1979, the last session being
a translation conference.
Interrupted for two years, the Festival
was reborn in 1982, modified under the
present direction, and took the name
Festival franco-anglais de poésie.
Reciprocal translations between the guest
poets became the driving force, while
painters and sculptors, musicians and
actors soon began to collaborate, making
it a multi-arts festival, with poetry as
the common denominator.
La
Traductière was born in the
midst of all this, in 1983, because of the
need to keep track of the work carried out
for the Festival.
So today the Festival has come to its
35th year, and "La
Traductière" to its 30th issue, under the
auspices of the Association
franco-anglaise de poésie
created in 1984. They both went to
Melbourne in 2008, to hold the new edition
of the Festival and to present the 26th
issue of "La Traductière", with 21
Australian Poets
Today. The 35th session will be held in
Paris in June 2012, hosting 7 poets from Singapore,
along with the Marché de la Poésie.
Over the years, the Festival, which
emphasises presentation, supplies the
review with cross-translations and with
graphic works created for the "Reverberations"
exhibition.
"La Traductière", which
emphasises the written word, supplies the
Festival with poems for the creation of
musical works for the Poetry and Music
presentation and for an annual Video-films Projection;
it also develops its own research topics and reviews
current Anglo-French poetry publications.
Yesterday and today, the same
objective: to promote exchanges between
poets and artists from different languages
and cultures, and to share with the public
the poetry and artworks created around the
Festival.
Jacques Rancourt
director
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