After the Else Lasker-Schüler Prize was awarded to six poets from the Poetry Project and translator Aarash Spanta in early February, the project was invited to a reading at the Grassi Museum für Völkerkunde in Leipzig as part of "Leipzig lauscht" on March 18th. The moderation was led by Hajo Jahn, a journalist and chairman of the Else Lasker-Schüler Society. Jahn initially highlighted thematic similarities between the texts of the prominent German-Jewish poet and the poetry of Afghan youth, from the exploration of the refugee experience to cultural mediation.
He quoted poems by the young poets and recited the German versions of Kahel Kaschmiri's texts, which the 16-year-old emotionally read in Persian, eliciting goosebumps and tears from the audience. Additionally, Hajo Jahn engaged in a dialogue with Aarash Spanta, who shared the individual stories of the youth, their work with the Poetry Project, and of politics and poetry in Afghanistan.
