About the Festival
The Thessalian Poetry Festival started its course in 2013 when it was organized for the first time in Larissa, in the context of the celebration of World Poetry Day. With years, it became a 7-days-long event with international participation held in 4 cities in Thessaly: Larissa, Volos, Trikala, and Karditsa.
Since the beginning, Thraka has been consistently organizing the Festival, and now it is organized by Thraka and the Deputy Mayor of Culture and Science of the Municipality. We often collaborate with other cultural institutions from Thessaly, such as Thessalian Theatre, Diachronic Museum, Museum of Millos, Union of Visual arts “8”, The French Institute in Larissa, and OffArt Dance Theatre, thus connecting poetry with music, dance, and painting.
During the festival, two awards are being awarded: Lakis Machanas for the great contribution to literature in Greece, and the Thraka award for the best unpublished poetry manuscript, which guarantees the publishing of the winning book by Thraka.
Our mission is to nurture the communal aspect of poetry, but also to connect Thessalian culture to the world.
Our primary goal is to gather new talented poetic voices alongside already established poets in order to bring a renewed interest in culture and poetry and to act as a meeting point for poets of different generations, countries, and cultural traditions.
«Thraka »
“Thraka” is a non-profit company based in Larisa. Our main activities are publishing poetry books and online and printed magazine “Thraka”, organizing the Thessalian Poetry Festival, and literary residencies. We aim to promote activities that contribute to the cultural development of Thessaly, and to bring contemporary Greek literature to the domestic readership and abroad.
Ever since the beginning, our goal has been to connect the new talented poetic voices with already recognized poets, to create a meeting point that would be creative. Combining enthusiasm, dynamism, and experience, we hope to bring a renewed interest in culture and poetry to Larissa.
Ever since the festival’s first edition and during its later expansion, the reactions of the poets and the local community were overwhelmingly positive. The embracing from the city of Larisa sealed this ten-year course, with its main feature being the unprecedented attendance of the audience.
The festival is growing every year, both in the duration, and the versatility of its program, which is enriched every year with poetry nights, performances, artistic interventions, and social actions. Every year tributes are made to an honoured town or region, from which poets are invited at the festival. Since 2020, the festival started having different European countries in focus.
Such regions, throughout the years, were Drama, the islands, Kavala, Western Macedonia, the Peloponnese, etc. in the last two years, the international opening happened as well, as european poets have participated in it. Poetry readings with music, with an audience of 200 or more people, the meeting point of poets of various generations, countries, and cultural traditions, and the hospitality to the guest poets, have become an ethos that sets the tone of the festival every year.
