The young poets performed for the second time at the International Literature Festival Berlin 2016, this time in front of a completely different audience, which mainly consisted of school classes. After this reading by the young poets, dozens of young people spontaneously formed long queues in front of the book table. Berlin students queued to purchase one of the poetry collections of the Berlin anthology The Poetry Project and to ask the refugees for an autograph. Many wanted to know more about the authors and even asked them for their phone numbers.
It suddenly became clear: if poems can foster this kind of mutual human interest, they will not only be able to do this at a literature festival, but elsewhere as well. Of course, the best place for this is the school and anywhere where refugees and German citizens regularly meet.
The actress Lydia Schamschula and SPIEGEL Foreign Correspondent Susanne Koelbl read the poems in German.
