The launch of the new website of the Poëzieroute Leeuwarden on Friday 6 November was celebrated with a program about street poetry with speaker Kila van der Starre. The largest poetry route in the Netherlands is located in the Frisian capital. This route is now also accessible to people with disabilities.
The Stichting Poezietableaus Leeuwarden (established in 1993) now manages sixty poetry stones in the city. The route includes poems by Jan Jacob Slauerhoff, Ilja Leonard Pfeijffer, Anne Vegter, Remco Campert and Ellen Deckwitz. This route is now also accessible to people with disabilities via the new website and web app at poezieroute.nl. The entire route can therefore be followed both at home and on the road.
Actors Tamara Schoppert and Raymond Muller recorded the poems so visually impaired people can listen to the lyrics. For people who are unable to walk the route, 360-degree images have also been made for each poem. In addition, English translations are available for foreign guests and the Frisian poems have also been translated into Dutch.
Main guest Kila van der Starre gave a workshop on the linguistic and material code of street poetry on Friday 5 November. In the following lecture, the literary scholar, poetry critic, and poet explained how this form of literature originated and what the differences are between the phenomenon in Flanders and the Netherlands.
The new website was developed by BW H Ontwerpers and made possible by Leeuwarden UNESCO City of Literature and the Prins Bernhard Cultuurfonds Fryslân.
photo’s: Marc de fotograaf
