When I started planning this Poetry Slam as a part of the "A European Future in Solidarity" project-grant from the European Parliament in April, we were still in the middle of the pandemic. But due to my optimism and a lot of luck, I coincidentaly got in contact with the right people at the right time.
While looking for a safe open air location for the summer, I got in touch with the management of the "Freilichtbühne Lübeck" who were applying for a corona-model-project, initiated by the city of Lübeck back then. As they were conviced by the idea of our event right away, they included us in their draft programme for the application. With a chance of a great location, I contacted Poetry Slam legend Tilo Strauß from Slam A Rama in Lübeck who is organising such events for over 15 years and asked him for support. Being as motivated as I was, he agreed for a cooperation and managed to book the greatest slammers from all over Germany for our event.
Dana, volunteer at the office of "Schüler Helfen Leben" in Neumünster - and a talented poetry slammer herself - opened the event, introduced SAME and SHL as hosts and started the evening with a text on Europe. After that, she gave the stage to the professionals who started the lyrical competition. Listening to texts from Sebastian 23, Jessy James LaFleur, Andy Strauß, Anastasia Rutkowska and Lennart Hamann, for the visitors the emotional merry-go-round began to spin.
While some texts got us laughing to tears, others were so emotional, it gives me goosebumps just thinking back. The artists addressed a varied range of topics such as the the european asylum and refugee policy, the way to peace within Europe, freedom of speech, feminism, but also came up with humourous ideas like phonetic painting or croque-politics.
All in all, I can't be happier that everything worked out as planned, that so many people from the office and from the volunteers suppored me and I'm looking forward to repeating it next year in the summer!
