Western Switzerland now boasts an extensive poetry organization in the form of a network bringing its energy to the cantons. Some one hundred poetry partners throughout Western Switzerland work together as cultural, academic, creative or scientific actors. Making up these remarkable numbers are passionate, sensitive, committed people seeking to develop a new model of collaboration to raise awareness about contemporary poetry and its legacies.  Western Switzerland, through the Printemps de la Poésie poetry festival, has been developing a true ‘Poetry Network’ since 2016, comprising local institutions, poets, and poetry actors. Founded and driven by the University of Lausanne, this network is…

Building on the second global conference on poetry studies from on 4-7 June, 2019: L'entre-deux lyrique/The Between-ness of the Lyric, the University of Lausanne, together with the International Network for the Study of Lyric (INSL) are developing poetry criticism on a global and international scale, in multiple languages. The project starts by collecting the contributions of the best contemporary critics in various languages in Lausanne. Following the University of Boston in 2017, the University of Lausanne is hosting the INSL’s second international conference on global poetry and lyric studies. This event is the opportunity to bring together the finest in international…

We are experiencing a turning point in our relationship to books. More than any other genre, poetry can show how digital technology can be an opportunity for a stronger relationship in its embodiment- and nostalgia for traditional reading is part of this development. Supported by the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNFS) Agora funding scheme, and developed by the University of Lausanne, the École polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), and the School of Management and Engineering Vaud (HEIG-VD), the project will bring together academic, cultural, and scientific institutions to set up an exhibition highlighting the interaction between poetry and technology in the…

In June of 2019, the book Le Poème et le territoire invites you to discover the poetic world heritage of Western Switzerland through literary walks. From the Valais to Geneva, from Lausanne to the Jura, via Fribourg, Neuchâtel or the Riviera, some twenty itineraries follow in the footsteps of poets past and present, revealing a novel literary geography of the region. Image : G. Courbet Western Switzerland is a little-known poetic landscape. During their European peregrinations, Hugo, Lamartine, Byron, Wordsworth, Rilke, Hardy, and Borges were among the great figures in world literature who sought – and found – the sublime in…