6/9/25
Mon,
12:00

Stage made of paper
Poetry talk with Michel Decar and Yin Zixu

Poesiefestival Berlin 2025
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Michel Decar and Yin Zixu are two poets with a concise, unique linguistic style. Both like to work across genre boundaries - their texts range from poems to novels to drama. They formed a tandem in the Chinese-German translation workshop precisely because of the highly experimental nature of their respective poetry.

Michel Decar approaches poetry with the flair of a playwright - his long poem I came in the shape of an elephant (2023) combines dense dialog and rapid scene changes to create a poetic-dramatic form.

Yin Zixu combines linguistic elements from traditional Chinese culture, pop-cultural satire and oral poetry to create a powerful poetic language. His series The Wise King (2021-2023) also has unmistakable theatrical traits.

In conversation, both will share their experiences of translating each other and talk about poetic transformation, cultural transfer processes and stylistic friction. The event will be moderated and translated by Juntao Ye, who is an active translator in the Qiaodong translation workshop and has translated poems by Yin Zixu into German.