deBuren

De Gulden Ontsporing, the Festival of the Flemish Community in Brussels, is an all-embracing spectacle. Each year this festival amounts to more than the sum of its parts. A whole range of monolingual, bilingual, new-fashioned bilingual and other non-native speakers are therefore cordially invited to experience what we, the Flemish Community, have to offer this city.

There is also a full afternoon programme with the connecting element called 'Waar de mond van vol is…' (‘Which is on everyone's lips’), which focuses on the ‘word’. It involves the collaboration of several partners, including the Flemish-Netherlands House, deBuren.

DeBuren have extended invitations to four town poets: Tom Lanoye, ex-town poet of Antwerp and his successor Ramsey Nasr, Joost Zwagerman, town poet of Alkmaar, and Paul Gellings, town poet of Zwolle. The poets read from their own work and, under the moderation of Martine Tanghe, debate on their role as town poets. What does being a town poet entail? What are the dilemmas the town poet has to face? Are the expectations with regard to town poets in Flanders different to those in the Netherlands?