Dr Norbert Gestring and Prof Dr Claudia Benthien (University of Hamburg)

www.poetry-digital-age.uni-hamburg.de/forschung/laufend/public-poetry.html

The interdisciplinary research project brings together approaches from literary studies and urban sociology and will result in a book publication. It is dedicated to the visual and auditory presence of poetry in urban settings. For example, "Poetry in Motion": framed and ornamented poems in the underground of various metropolises. Or large-format poems on façades, whether temporary, for example through fluid light projections as part of art events, or permanent, by inscribing huge verses on the walls of buildings. Billboard poetry" (poems on billboards) or poetry as neon lettering installations in parks and public squares are also worth mentioning here. Acoustic forms of presentation of lyrical language also play a role: from technically amplified spoken word events that make 'poetry' audible in urban spaces to poetic interventions, for example the declaiming of poems through a megaphone in symbolic urban locations or their raining down from the sky by helicopter. Both public poetry projects authorised by the city administration and informal projects initiated by poets or residents themselves, who claim their "right to the city" (Henri Lefebvre) in this way, will be examined.

For the summer semester 2021, Claudia Benthien and Norbert Gestring have received fellowships from the DFG Research Unit "Poetry in Transition", University of Trier, to work on this project.

In autumn 2023, this project was completed with the publication of a monograph by DeGruyter. www. degruyter.com/document/isbn/9783110784701/html?lang=de