The Odesa – UNESCO City of Literature Office continues to introduce readers to the project “Poetry in Cities of Literature.”
Planned for over a year, the project showcases examples of contemporary poetry from sister cities within the UNESCO Cities of Literature network.
The latest installment of the poetry series focuses on the German city of Heidelberg, which celebrated the 10th anniversary of its UNESCO City of Literature status last year.
Beyond promoting literary art, the initiative highlights the crucial support offered by UNESCO Cities of Literature: from festival invitations and translation assistance to artist residencies. These connections enable Ukrainian authors to cross borders, reach new audiences, and preserve their creative voices on the global stage. At its core, “Poetry in Cities of Literature” emphasizes mutual cultural enrichment, fostering an open exchange where books, ideas, and traditions travel freely, inspiring and uniting people worldwide.
Miriam Tag is a poet, sociologist and philosopher (Ph.D.), working at the intersection of literature, arts and environmental humanities. Heidelberg Authors' Prize 2019, Merck Fellow of Textwerkstatt Darmstadt/Center for New Literature 2021, nominated for the Munich Poetry Prize 2021, Dresden Poetry Prize 2021, Meran Poetry Prize 2024, Irseer Pegasus 2025. Multiple participation in exhibitions (Kunstmuseum Liechtenstein, Kunsthalle Darmstadt, Museum Haus Sinclair). Artistic director of the Planetary Art Festival.
Her first of poetry-collection liebestier was published in 2023 by Aphaia, Munich. Further publications: ‘Who experiments’ (in Nature Writing, Art and Nature Foundation 2023), ‘neues gras’ (in Poems and Prose for the Exhibition Parliament of Plants II, Liechtenstein Art Museum 2023), ‘Gaia-Glottie’ (in Apocalypse & Apathy, transcript 2025), ‘Intimate Attraction’ (in Implications: Michel Serres and the Environmental Humanities, Bloomsbury 2025), ‘Fiery’ (in Climatic Subjects, transcript 2025).
Let’s listen to Miriam’s poem in the original language:
twelve doves (zwölf tauben)
one like a stone
in my heart-hand
two take flight
with no direction
three form a balance
against forgetting –
one resists
one surrenders
one remembers
four rise into all winds
in search for protection
one at their center
stretches the crosshairs
the last one recounts:
in your apartment
at the Італійська
did you carry in that spring
a bird, nearly there
where just weeks before
the small beating
had suddenly stopped
tiny wings
fold themselves in and out
close to the heart –
no thirteenth spell, no curse –
only the memory of something small
significant
in a vast forgetting
The project was created by the Odesa UNESCO City of Literature and being implemented with funds raised by Reykjavik City of Literature Reykjavík Bókmenntaborg UNESCO as part of the readings initiated by Milano City of Literature “Not Just Words” (Reading for Odesa) on February 24, 2024.
