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

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

This interdisciplinary research project brings together approaches from literary studies and urban sociology and will result in a book publication. It focuses on the visual and auditory presence of poetry in urban settings. For example, ‘Poetry in Motion’: framed and ornamented poems in the underground systems of various cities. Or large-format poems on building façades, whether temporary – such as fluid light projections as part of art events – or permanent, through the inscription of huge verses on building walls. ‘Billboard Poetry’ (poems on billboards) and poetry as neon sign installations in parks and public spaces are also worth mentioning here. Acoustic forms of presenting poetic language also play a role: from technically amplified spoken-word events that make ‘poetry’ audible in urban spaces, to poetic interventions, such as reciting poems through a megaphone at symbolic urban locations or having them rain down from the sky via a helicopter. The study examines both public poetry projects authorised by the city council and informal initiatives launched by poets or local residents themselves, who in this way assert their ‘right to the city’ (Henri Lefebvre).

For the summer semester of 2021, Claudia Benthien and Norbert Gestring were awarded fellowships by the DFG Research Group‘Lyrik in Transition’at the University of Trier to work on this project.

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