12. September 2008.

This year Balatonfüred is hosting the 16th Salvatore Quasimodo Poetry Festival and Awards Gala on September 5 and 6. The event has been sponsored by Herendi Porcelánmanufaktúra Zrt for the past ten years. This sponsorship is an integral part of the diverse ties between the Manufactory and the city of Balatonfüred.
In a renewed environment, the renovated Anna Grand Hotel, located in the refurbished early 19th century quarter of town, provides the elegant backdrop to the quality cultural program.
This year’s poetry competition also happens to coincide with an anniversary year. June 14 of this year is the 40th anniversary of the death of Salvatore Quasimodo.
The chief patron of the event is his Excellency Paolo Guido Spinelli, the ambassador of the Republic of Italy, and Katalin Bogvay, Secretary of State of the Ministry of Education and Culture.

135 entrants have sent in their poems to the 2008 Salvatore Quasimodo Poetry Competition. This year, in addition to domestic entries, poems have even been submitted from the Ukraine, Romania, Serbia and Ireland.
The Memorial Award was won by Krisztina Tóth’s poem titled “A világ minden országa” (“Every Country in the World), while Attila T. Barna’s poem titled: Lehajtott fejjel ült tovább (He Continued to Sit with his Head Bowed Low) (in memoriam Gáspár Nagy) won the special award.
10 poets received award certificates. All 12 award recipients have received the bonbon dish of the Herend Porcelain Manufactory, equipped with the year date and the Balatonfüred logo.


Additional information

The history of the Salvatore Quasimodo Poetry Competition

Salvatore Quasimodo visited Balatonfüred in 1961, accompanied by György Szabó. He had seen Tagore’s memorial tree and read his lines. Similarly to Rabindranath Tagore, Salvatore Quasimodo had regained his health in the city. He also planted a memorial tree and expressed his feelings concerning the Balaton countryside and Balatonfüred in poetry. Rabindranath Tagore started the tradition of tree planting in 1926, and ever since, dignitaries, ambassadors and politicians plant a young tree in the so-called Alsó Park (Lower Park) above the Tagore sétány (Tagore Boulevard).

In 1992 once again an Italian poet visited Balatonfüred and planted a tree: Franco Cajani. It was at the suggestion of the poet and art historian that the poetry competition and the notion of the Quasimodo memorial award were born.

The municipality of the city of Balatonfüred, as well as the Quasimodo Foundation that it has formed, established a memorial award to commemorate the Noble Prize-winning Italian poet, awarded annually to poets, who write in the Hungarian language. The author of the work deemed best wins the memorial prize along with a scholarship, including the work of Tibor Borbas, the bronze plaque depicting Quasimodo. For the past 10 years, each of the 12 award recipients has received the gift of a Herend porcelain bonbon dish featuring the year date and the Balatonfüred logo.

Each year, of the submitted entries, the Memorial Award winning and the Special Award winning poem(s) are also translated into the Italian language. The awards shall be handed over at an official ceremony, in the presence of an international judges’ panel. Creative artistic and musical events are held alongside the evening award event at which well known performing artists will read the winning poems. Since 1994 the award winning works have also been read aloud in Italian, performed by the son of the poet, actor Alessandro Quasimodo.

Each year since 1992, Franco Cajani introduces a contemporary Italian graphic artist in Balatonfüred, whose exhibition can be viewed for a month, starting from the day of the award ceremony.