ROMANIAN ASTROPOETRY HOUR
IN
UNESCO’S WORLD POETRY DAY
2002-2003



or



SARM
IN
DIALOGUE AMONG CIVILIZATIONS
THROUGH POETRY READINGS

Coordinator: Andrei Dorian Gheorghe
President of SARM: Valentin Grigore
Design: Florin Stancu

Images:
1. DTP2002 Targoviste Poster by Adrian Macinca
2. DTP2002 Bucharest Reading by Calin Niculae

*

In 2001,
the famous poet Larry Jaffe from Los Angels
and the publisher (and also the film-maker) Ram Devineni from New York
launched the largest poetry project in history
(practically, a unique global poetry festival),
in the name of the United Nations Society of Writers,
entitled Dialogue Among Civilizations Through Poetry Readings
(shortly, Dialogue Through Poetry).

The project was coordinated on the Internet,
took 4 years,
and consisted of poetry readings all over the world
(America, Europe, Africa, Asia and Australasia)
around UNESCO’s World Poetry Day (March 21st)
in 2001, 2002, 2003 and 2004
(the last year being dedicated to the Centenary of
the great Chilean poet and Nobel laureate Pablo Neruda),
and was synthesized in annual anthologies.

The Romanian Society for Meteors and Astronomy (SARM)
participated at two editions of this project,
representing Romania
and having one of the most original and ample contributions,
based on astronomical poetry:
3 readings in 2002
(plus 20 other readings during the entire year 2002
for another global project,
related to Dialogue Through Poetry
and entitled Poetry on the Peaks),
and especially 4 readings in 2003
(one of them including also texts received from 3 continents) -
when it was the most active national group
(with the most numerous poets included in
the Dialogue Through Poetry 2003 anthology)
and statistically placed Romania on the second position in the world
(after U.S.A.)
regarding the number of events which were organized.

In fact, it was for the first time when astropoetry,
as a distinctive literary species,
penetrated the world poetry at such a high level
(and also a crowning of SARM’s first seven years of activity in this field).

We have to note that SARM’s contribution to the
DTP anthologies 2002 and 2003 included:
-in 2002 an essay by Andrei Dorian Gheorghe,
describing an imaginary trip in the Universe mainly on verses selected
from SARM’s printed astropoetry anthologies 1996-2002
(supplements of SARM’s astronomical magazine
Noi si Cerul / Us and the Sky;
actually, the first regular project of international contemporary astropoetry
in the world);
-in 2003 a special original astropoetry (mini)anthology signifying
SARM’s “divorce” from printed astropoetry anthologies
and the passing to electronic astropoetry anthologies.
And after all, these can be translated
as expressions of SARM’s Cosmopoetry Festival (unique in the world)
in a superb planetary context.

In order to put in evidence those extraordinary moments,
we have extracted the SARM texts published in the project anthologies
(edited by Rattapallax Press from New York),
and have added other significant details,
as follows:

2002
2003
IMAGES

© 2009 SARM
(Romanian Society for Meteors and Astronomy)