The “Struga Poetry Evenings” are part of the “Festival of Hope”, a global virtual poetry initiative organized by “Versopolis”, a platform which unites 30 European international poetry festivals and is supported by the European Commission with a grant, enabling greater mobility of young European poets.

The programme of the “Festival of Hope” which has started with an online panel discussion of four poets on the 23rd of April, will be carried out completely online from the 24th to the 30th of April on the Versopolis website.

As a response to the global uncertainty caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, which has left many poetry festivals unable to take place in their usual format, while others are being cancelled or postponed, Versopolis has initiated the organization of a digital poetry festival. Alongside the poetry festivals which are part of the Versopolis platform, the initiative is supported by a number of other poetry festivals by providing various contents, but with hope as the common denominator and the driving force of humanity towards overcoming the difficulties it is now facing. More than 60 festivals have applied as participants, with just as many subprogrammes.

The Struga Poetry Evenings (SPE) have joined with the project Words of Hope/Verses of Hope, which includes video addresses by 8 Macedonian poets who are part of the total number of 20 nominated poets of the Versopolis platform by SPE, starting from 2014 up until 2020.

Each video address contains a short personal message of hope, followed by reading one poem by the poets themselves. The message and the poem are in Macedonian language, with subtitles in English language. A short video address is also given by the Director of the SPE.

The videos will be published in succession on the official SPE YouTube channel each day as the festival is proceeding, and then they will be published on the official Festival website and shared on the rest of the SPE social platforms. The remaining contents of the Festival will also be shared on the SPE social platforms.