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.
Philipp Herold (born in Heidelberg in 1991) writes and speaks. He is an author and performer, two-time German-language runner-up in poetry slam and co-founder of the collective ‘Verschwende deine Lyrik!’ (Waste your poetry!).
Over the past 15 years, he has performed his poems on stage more than 1,000 times – from the Schauspielhaus Hamburg and the Volksbühne Berlin to the Staatsoper Hannover and the Alte Oper Frankfurt to the Theaterhaus Stuttgart and the Schauspielhaus Zürich.
In 2018, he published his book ‘Alles zu seiner Zeit’ (Everything in its own time), followed by the EP ‘Von hier an’ (From here on) in 2021. In 2022, he won the Hessian Spoken Word Prize, and in 2023 he was artist in residence at the UNESCO City of Barcelona.
Please, enjoy with the English translation of the poem by Philipp Herold:
Elementary small lines (Elementarzeilchen)
If themselves in the big periodic table
a few individuals so well understand (each other)
that they themselves approach and try
with each other to fuse
until molecules themselves connect / bond
and structures anew invent
that themselves at ends tenderly grasp
until they into-each-other fit
in order themselves to unite like never before
then is right the chemistry
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.
