by: Junior Poetry Festival | data 10/11/2024
The Junior Poetry Festival has come a long way since it was launched six years ago with a campaign on ideaginger.it.
We've held hundreds of school meetings, dozens of events across the region and throughout Italy, and welcomed many Italian and international guests. Over the years, we've expanded the festival's programmes beyond the usual October dates to span the entire year.
In addition to the three festival days full of meetings, readings, workshops, parades, and exhibitions, the festival now includes outdoor summer events, training days for teachers, summer camps for teenagers, and an international magazine: All this and more makes up the Junior Poetry Festival.
We have been able to achieve all of this thanks to the support of the City of Castel Maggiore and other municipalities within the Union of Reno Galliera. But we couldn't have done it without the support of those who contributed to the crowdfunding projects launched right here on Ideaginger.it even before the festival came to life.
Thanks to the festival and the network of relationships fostered through the Junior Poetry Magazine, we are building up a wealth of knowledge about poetry, poetic practices in and out of schools, and the Italian and international publishing landscapes.
Now it’s time to make this wealth available to the community, continuing the work we've done so that poetry is not only for everyone but belongs to everyone.
So now it's time to share this knowledge with the wider community.
For years, thanks to the collaboration between Accademia Drosselmeier (one of the founding organizations of the festival) and the Bologna Children's Book Fair, we have been building up a huge collection of poetry books from around the world, sent by publishers for participating in the BolognaRagazzi Award.
The books in this collection are mostly illustrated and represent a selection of the finest examples of international children's poetry publishing, chosen by publishers to compete for the prestigious BolognaRagazzi Award. Furthermore, the festival has exclusive access to the personal collection amassed by Grazia Gotti from Accademia Drosselmeier, which includes a wealth of gems from global publishing as well as titles that are currently unavailable.
The collection of the Junior Poetry Center currently comprises 1,000 books, but this number is continuously increasing, as each year the poetry books submitted to the Bologna Children's Book Fair are donated to the Junior Poetry Festival.
The books – a valuable material treasure – and an immaterial treasure – experiences. It is our intention to make this wealth available to the wider community, as well as to visitors from Italy and abroad who will visit the Junior Poetry Center, which is the first international Center for children's poetry in Italy.
The Center will be part of the Parco del Sapere, an architecturally cutting-edge structure that will increasingly become the cultural focal point of the city of Castel Maggiore and a destination of interest for neighbouring regions, attracting scholars, educators and other interested parties from across the country and beyond.
The Junior Poetry Center will be closely associated with the Natalia Ginzburg Public Library, which will designate a specific area for the Center's collection. This international poetry section will be always accessible for consultation at the library and will be brought to life with readings in various languages, engaging the rich multicultural community in our area.
It is not our intention that the Center should be regarded as merely a repository of books; we envision it as a dynamic hub of knowledge and experience. Throughout the year, the Junior Poetry Center will organize ongoing activities open to the public, as well as intensive weekend sessions focused on training and workshops that explore the connections between poetry, the arts, and different techniques for all age groups. The Accademia Drosselmeier’s 20 years' experience in education, research and training, together with the involvement of the Municipality of Castel Maggiore, the six years of experimentation at the Junior Poetry Festival, and three years of the Junior Poetry Summer Camp, along with the robust networks that have been established, will facilitate the involvement of prominent figures from the realm of children's poetry, illustrators, and artists from diverse disciplines in the Center's programming.
This is how we'll be spending the main part of the funds raised: right after the inauguration on 25 October 2024, during the VI edition of the Junior Poetry Festival, we're planning to launch a programme that includes at least two intensive weekends (training, workshops for children and families) in the first year, two ongoing periodic activities (language readings, workshops for teenagers), and an exhibition.
The Junior Poetry Center will thus be a year-round poetry workshop, connected to similar organizations in Europe and around the world. We'll also be using some of the funds raised in this campaign to finance two important behind-the-scenes operations that are necessary and extremely valuable. It will also be a hub for connections among Italian entities, scholars, and teachers who work with poetry and poetry for girls and boys with an open outlook and a desire to experiment.
A small part of the funds raised in this campaign will be used to finance two important behind-the-scenes operations. The first is the creation of an integrated digital archive which gathers the experiences carried out in schools, cities, and every context over the years. We'll be gathering our experiences and those of anyone who wants to share them, in order to create a valuable source of knowledge to spread further. Secondly, the books: we will catalogue and make the first 1,000 books of the Junior Poetry Center available for loan. The books will be accessible in the online catalogue of the National Library Service.
We really need you to make this happen!
Support the fundraising campaign and help us build a new home for poetry. A home that is also yours.
The Junior Poetry Festival was founded in 2019 as a result of the collaboration between Accademia Drosselmeier and the Lèggere Leggére book store. The municipality of Castel Maggiore has been a staunch supporter of the festival from the start, and in recent years, the municipality of Bentivoglio has also joined in.
he festival features meetings in schools, events, exhibitions, and training in our area and throughout Italy, with both Italian and international guests in attendance.
e have hosted authors and artists from all over the world in Castel Maggiore, including Joseph Coelho from the United Kingdom, Mar Benegas from Spain, Adolfo Córdova from Mexico, Mathilde Chèvre and Mateja Bizjak Petit from France, not to mention our beloved artistic director Bernard Friot.
any Italian guests have participated in the festival over the first five years, including Roberto Piumini, Bruno Tognolini, Giusi Quarenghi, Silvia Vecchini, Chiara Carminati, Alessandro Riccioni, Donatella Bisutti, and Nicola Cinquetti, to name but a few.
Marco Somà, Felicita Sala and Chiara Armellini were among the illustrators because it is through dialogue with illustration and other arts that poetry finds unexpected paths.
or four years, we have enlivened summer afternoons with a poetry-themed amusement park, the Junior Poetry Park.
Our Poetry Brigades entered primary schools and made an impact. The adult volunteers were later joined by the Junior Poetry Brigades, a result of collaboration with the Istituto Statale di Istruzione Superiore J. M. Keynes. Just imagine the surprise and excitement of young children when they saw teenagers engaging with poetry alongside them!
We also launched a Poetry Translation Lab at the local language high school. This innovative programme allows students to try their hand at poetic translation while exploring poetry and the foreign languages they are studying in new and exciting ways.
Three years ago, we started the Junior Poetry Summer Camp. During a week of poetry and arts, young people experience a free and creative relationship with poetry.
The Junior Poetry Magazine, a periodical for young poetry readers, was launched as a result of a successful campaign on ideaginger.it and has now reached its seventh issue. Ilaria Rigoli directs this publication, which is distributed in many book stores across the country and abroad five times a year.
And this year, we open the Junior Poetry Center - a new project to bring poetry closer to everyone.
Join us!
Il Junior Poetry Festival è il primo festival internazionale di poesia per bambini/e e ragazzi/e in Italia. Fondato nel 2019 da Grazia Gotti di Accademia Drosselmeier e Chiara Basile della libreria Lèggere Leggére, si tiene ogni anno a Castel Maggiore (BO) con ospiti italiani e internazionali, proponendo incontri nelle scuole e aperti al pubblico. Scopo del festival è portare la poesia a tutti i giovani lettori, proponendo modalità anche non convenzionali per questo incontro. Dal festival, negli anni, sono nate tante iniziative che hanno trasformato un evento di pochi giorni in un lavoro continuativo sulla poesia. Nel 2022 è nato il Junior Poetry Summer Camp per adolescenti tra i 12 e i 18 anni, in cui ci si muove al confine tra poesia, arti e tecniche. Nel 2023 il festival si è costituito in Associazione Culturale e ha visto la luce il Junior Poetry Magazine, rivista unica in Italia ad occuparsi di poesia per il pubblico dei più giovani e degli adulti che stanno con loro. Il Junior Poetry Magazine ha 64 pagine, esce cinque volte l'anno e contiene contributi di grandi autori di poesia, collaboratori del festival, a volte degli stessi giovani lettori. Nel 2024 nascerà a Castel Maggiore, all'interno del Parco del Sapere recentemente inaugurato, il primo Centro Internazionale di Poesia per Ragazzi: il Junior Poetry Center. Con un patrimonio iniziale di 1000 libri di poesia in tante lingue, donato dalla Bologna Childen's Book Fair e da Grazia Gotti, il centro avrà una collezione unica al mondo e sarà fulcro di attività di vario genere e per ogni età attorno alla poesia. Sarà centro di formazione, luogo di studio, sede di incontri e workshop per persone di ogni età.
