Milosz Festival

The Milosz Festival is the largest celebration of poetry in Poland and in Central Europe. The biggest names of world literature attend every edition. The festival emerged from Meetings of Poets of the East and the West, organised by Wislawa Szymborska and Czeslaw Milosz in 1997 and 2000 in Kraków. Five years after Czeslaw Milosz died, the Polish Book Institute initiated the very first edition of the festival entitled “The Captivated Mind”.

Each year it asks an important question about poetry’s place in the modern world. During the poetic evenings the audience has a unique opportunity to listen to the voices of many outstanding poets, representatives of many cultures and places in the world. Individual meetings provide another opportunity to listen to the poems by our guests and talk about their experience with the space of world and language.

Since 2014 Milosz Festival has been organised by Krakow Festival Office and the City of Literature Foundation.