Engaged audience at Stockholm International Poetry Festival 2015. Photo: Charles Ludvig.

Stockholm International Poetry Festival is a grand annual event organized by 20TAL featuring the most innovative and engaging voices in poetry, drama, art and music. Over the years, the festival has gained an international reputation for its continual level of quality, and is one of the biggest manifestations of poetry in the Nordic countries today. Our aim is to establish a real meeting-place for international poetry in Sweden. This is what gives Stockholm International Poetry Festival its unique character.

We invite some of the most topical and original poets from different parts of the world to perform in well composed arrangements on scene together with Swedish poets, musicians, actors and artists. The festival is always enacted during several days of seminars and performances, filled with newly written poetry, dramatics, art installations and music.

Philipp Scholz & Nora Gomringer at Stockholm International Poetry Festival 2017. Photo: Jonathan Brott.

Stockholm International Poetry Festival was founded in 1997 by 90TAL (now 20TAL), the magazine for contemporary literature, art and debate, with the purpose of introducing international literary impulses to Sweden by inviting innovative poets from all over the world. The festival was inaugurated at Elverket/Dramaten, one of the main theatre scenes in Stockholm, by Tomas Tranströmer. On stage, we gathered 25 Nordic poets such as Inger Christensen, Pia Tafdrup, Cecilie Løveid and Steinar Opstad. Since then, hundreds of poets from more than 40 languages has performed at the Poetry Festival, for example Jacques Robaud, Adonis, Benjamin Zephanaiah and many more.

We organize Stockholm International Poetry Festival annually on one of the big arenas in Stockholm, such as Konstakademin, Dramaten, Stockholm Stadsteater and the Nobel Museum. The international poets perform in their own language, accompanied by translations into Swedish and English professional translators, read by reputable actors and projected on stage.

Carolyn Forché at Stockholm International Poetry Festival 2019. Photo: Harald Carlinger.

In connection to the festival, you will also find AKT UNG! – the stage for young poets, organized by 20TAL. Each year, AKT UNG! invites young and non-established talents to perform on stage, and has over the years nourished important voices in contemporary Swedish poetry such as Iman Mohammed, Elis Monteverde Burrau, Erik Lindman Mata, Hanna Rajs Lara, Ellen Nordmark, Burcu Sahin and Mona Monasar.

Ellen Nordmark at AKT UNG! 2019. Dress: Elmina Ekman, photo: Harald Carlinger.

Here you can find all of the authors, actors, artists and musicians who have participated in Stockholm International Poetry Festival, from it’s start in 1997 until now: