The Paris Poetic Games

This spring, Paris is celebrating the Games with an abundant cultural program for everyone, which the City of Paris has entrusted to internationally renowned artists such as Mohammed El Khatib, Benjamin Millepied and Raymond Depardon. Artists are taking over the Parisian public space during festivities and events. In addition to these unifying events, the City of Paris will be setting up festive sites in every arrondissement throughout the summer as part of the "Paris fête les Jeux" program. The aim is to let Parisians and visitors from all over the world experience the party-like atmosphere that is synonymous with the Games.

To coincide with the Olympic Games, the City of Paris has commissioned the 118 year old Paris Université Club (PUC), and the prestigious Théâtre de la Ville to carry a poetic flame through the City of Light, with a program that is unifying, communal and surprising, carried out in partnership with numerous cultural and sporting players in the Paris region.

Under the aegis of Franco-Congolese writer and poet Alain Mabanckou, this poetry-in-the-city event will run from June to September 2024: poetic slogan contest posted on city streets and in the metro, sound bites broadcast inside municipal museums and the Montmartre funicular, Formes 75 and Rino della Negra (Manouchian group sportsman) shows on festive stages, poetic consultations, speech posters on the Seine's banks and a Bloomsday celebration with 15 contemporary writers who took part in an odyssey through the sporting venues of Seine Saint-Denis to celebrate Joyce's Ulysses (reading at the Théâtre des Abbesses).

A final Poetry Marathon will bring the "Jeux poétiques" to a close on September 7th, with a 12-hour performance in the Théâtre de la Ville and on a boxing ring on the Place du Châtelet. 20 French-speaking authors, poets, slammers and rappers will pass the proverbial baton to 10 Los Angeles poets, a nod to the host city of the 2028 Olympic Games, on Saturday September 7 from midday to midnight.