Poetry and politics: Poetry festival Poectica in Cologne conjures up magical thinking

Msometimes – perhaps even above all – poetry is simply sound, disconnected from any concrete meaning. When Sofia Jernberg steps up to the microphone on the auditorium stage at Cologne University, you have already heard several original poems and will hear more, recited by poets from Denmark, Brazil and Haiti. And only those who know the respective language search for the meaning of what they read when they listen for the first time. The rest have to wait until Lavinia Nowak or Hasti Molavian from the Cologne Schauspiel Ensemble submit the translation. This is a gift because it allows you to fully listen to the sound, and the position of this genre as a transitional area between language and music becomes particularly clear at the opening soirée of the eleventh Cologne poetry festival Poetica.