Young Rhymes

Young Rhymes [Mlade rime] are a monthly series of poetry readings that are taking place at the Menza pri koritu ("Canteen at the Trough") since 2005. They present the voices of young or fresh or upcoming poets, who are given the opportunity to either read their pieces to an informed and interested audience, or be a part of this (predominantly young) audience. As such, Young Rhymes facilitate an open community of those interested in poetry and have probably became one of the cornerstones of Slovenian poetry scene-in-the-making.

A regular evening usually consists of about five or six (or sometimes more) poets, who are accompanied by a recital from an already more established poet. Very often, the evening is closed by a music concert and occasionally the readings themselves are a concert. Sometimes, they invite foreign guests and from time to time, they hold a sort of special edition evenings. With a what they call rock'n'roll approach, Young Rhymes is an organic and organisation-wise frequently improvised series of events that aim to free poetry from the many pre-established notions and connotations it may have. A distinctive quality that sets Young Rhymes apart from other similar events is their explicit openness, which means that all the applicants get to present their poems on these evenings, be they good or not so good.

Since 2014, Young Rhymes also hold regular evenings in the Pekarna Cultural Centre.

Background

With the help of DRPPD - Association for Development of Preventative and Volunteer Work and KUD Mreža Arts and Culture Association, the series itself was started in 2005 by two Spanish volunteers and exchange students Carmen Perez in Jacob Amo. Coincidently, a pair of poets – Dejan Koban and Veronika Dintjan – have at that same time established the KUD Kentaver with the aim to set up a similar enterprise and in 2006, the series was passed into their care.

Not long after the organisers decided to set up some sort of a sum-up of the season and invited all the participants of the year past to attend in a one rather prolonged evening. They've done the same thing in the years that followed and in 2008, the Young Rhymes Festival officially came to be.

Young Rhymes Festival

While the festival unofficially started as a one very long evening, it soon grew to be a two week long affair with a huge number of participants and a very strong musical line-up. Although this arrangement worked quite decently, the festival has now been condensed into about one week and has its programmed poets curated by Dejan and Veronika. It is structured similarly to the regular Young Rhymes evenings but has a somewhat richer additional programme that features cabaret, improvised music interventions, concerts (sometimes more of them in one evening), video performances and so on.

As Young Rhymes has an explicit DIY and guerilla mentality, often the visitors are invited to help with the preparations and setting up of the festival.

Collaborations

Young Rhymes actively associate themselves with various other nodal actors in the field of poetry. They collaborated with LUD Literatura and Pranger Festival, and were hosted by the Sanje ('Dreams') Festival, the Noster nostri Festival and the 3P - Pesniška prihodnost. Yong Rhymes have been invited to a number of other venues in Slovenia and have been held in Koper, Nova Gorica, Ribnica, Tržiča, Clagenfurt (AT) and Trieste (IT). They also collaborate with Župančičeva frulica, a project that features a number of young poets and readers of poetry from primary and high schools from all over Slovenia.

The Maribor series of the festival is co-produced with the MKC Črka and Liter Jezika.

Naming a few of the either young or established poets who performed at one of the Young Rhymes would be pointless, as most of them were have stood at its stage. As of the foreign guests, they came from Great Britain, Australia, USA, Spain, Italy, Croatia, Serbia, Macedonia, etc. There were a great many hosted musicians as well, from the noise duet Onttervjabbit to the legendary jazz collective Lolita and from the sludge rock trio Grrizli Madams to the curious vocalist and performer Irena Tomažin.

External links

Young Rhymes

Contents

Background

Young Rhymes Festival

Collaborations

See also

External links

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