Beginning at 11 a.m. on 26.06.2023, at the “Congress Hall” of the “Drim” Hotel in Struga, a press conference took place, during which the SPE manager Todorche Tasevski announced the details of the Programme of this year’s Festival edition. At the beginning, he expressed his sincere gratitude to Samuel Kennedy and the Kennedy Technology Company, who arduously and without compensation, as a socially responsible company, implemented a new design of the SPE website and an upgrade of the Content Management System.

   On behalf of the Kennedy Technology company, Samuel Kennedy provided a summary of the project for the implementation of new website design and optimisation. “As a foreigner living here, I feel especially privileged to contribute to this important cultural event in my second home, Macedonia”. He highlighted the main priorities accomplished by the project: Sustainability and availability achieved through an updated version of the Content Management System, ease of sharing, webpage optimization for enhanced performance, and a solid technical foundation which will ensure the digital growth of the SPE into the next decade, as well as the potential for further improvements via a modernised platform opening new possibilities for additional technical improvements and innovative online-media offers.

   Following this, the details of the Festival’s Programme were presented:

   “The Struga Poetry Evenings”, as one of the oldest and most important world poetry festivals, will take place this year in its regular time interval at the end of August; more specifically, from the 24th to the 28th of August in its authentic edition and its recognizable locations.

   The official opening ceremony will again take place at its usual location, the plateau of the “Brothers Miladinov” Centre of Culture, and we truly hope that this year, the weather conditions will allow the event to be carried out without obstructions, while the hall of the “Centre of Culture” is available as an alternative location. The official closing ceremony will be the traditional reading at the “Bridge of Poetry”.

   The motto of this year’s festival is FEELING-CREATIVE/CREATED LANGUAGE. With this motto, we wish to accentuate the aspect of poetry and poetic language as a language created, or rather made from feelings but also a language which creates feelings. We would also like to emphasise the power of poetry to create new words and to change, that is, to enrich our worldview, so in that sense, poetry is also a MIRACULOUS LANGUAGE. Such poetic language is a challenge even for the latest trends of artificial intelligence algorithms which generate language on the basis of different principles – the principles of semantic correlations and mathematical calculations. In this year’s Programme of the “Struga Poetry Evenings”, a Round Table discussion has been planned on the following topic: “Poetic language and artificial intelligence”. 

   This year we have a Macedonian Laureate, the outstanding Macedonian poet Vlada Urošević. The poetry portrait of the Laurate will take place on the 26th of August at the cathedral church “St. Sophia” in Ohrid, as is tradition.

More than 25 foreign poets from around the world, as well as domestic poets from the older and the younger generation, will participate at the main festival readings.

   This year, within the framework of the Programme, a Commemoration Jubilee of “100 Years Since the Birth of Aco Shopov” will take place under the patronage of the President Stevo Pendarovski.  Several events have been planned as part of the “Struga Poetry Evenings” Programme: Exhibition of photographs related to Aco Shopov’s participation at the Struga Poetry Evenings and his enormous contribution towards the creation and development of the Festival. Namely, Aco Shopov, was the President of the first Festival Board. Furthermore, a promotion of translated editions of Aco Shopov in several languages, as well as an official event on the occasion of the Jubilee will take place at St. Sophia on the 26th of August, ahead of the portrait of this year’s Laureate.

   This year’s Programme has envisaged a portrait of the recipient of the “Bridges of Struga” Award (this year’s recipient is the Irish poet Gavin Bradley, who lives and works in Canada) and a portrait of the recipient of the “Brothers Miladinov” Award for 2023 who will be revealed at the beginning of August. The competition lasted until June 25th. As part of the SPE Programme, a special event will take place, related to the participation of the selected poets from the “VERSOPOLIS” platform, a project supported by the European Commission. The “Struga Poetry Evenings” institution has been a part of this project since 2014.

   Regarding the “Struga Poetry Evenings” book editions, alongside the Monography of the “Golden Wreath” recipient, an Anthology of the Festival will be published this year in an expanded edition, available online, followed by a trilingual edition of last year’s recipient of the “Brothers Miladinov” Award and the edition of the “Bridges” Award recipient. In honour of the Jubilee: “60 years since the inception of the ‘Brothers Miladinov’ Award”, an anthology of poetry and flora will be published, titled Among the Trees, prepared by our famed Macedonian poet, university professor and philosopher Ivan Dzeparovski. This anthology contains a selection of the poetic works of past award recipients, whose poems contain floral motives and will actualise the literary-theoretical approach of echo poetry and echo criticism. 

   As part of the Jubilee “200 years since the birth of Sándor Petőfi”, in cooperation with the Hungarian embassy, an exhibition about the life and work of the famous Hungarian poet will be presented as part of the Programme.

   The official opening and closing ceremonies of the SPE will take place at recognizable locations, and throughout the remaining festival days, the morning programme has been planned to take place at the Congress Hall of the “Drim” Hotel, which is one of our main supporters, while the evening part of the Programme will take place at the summer stage of the Centre of Culture “Brothers Miladinov”.

   The media coverage of the festival will be provided by the Macedonian National Television, which will directly broadcast the main events.

   Since 2019, the festival’s Programme has been streamed on the official YouTube channel of the SPE, providing full access to a broader auditorium.

   The “Struga Poetry Evenings” maintain the continuity of the festival, which, since its inception in 1961, has been presenting the power of poetry to unite the world.