PEN International’s Translation and Linguistic Rights Committee is seeking submission for their annual Video-Poem Marathon in Indigenous and Minoritized Languages.
The marathon will launch February 21, 2025 (International Mother Language Day) and run until March 21 (World Poetry Day). This project seeks to create a space for the simplest and most beautiful use of minoritized languages: to create art, express feelings, and bring joy—first to the community itself and then to the wider world.
Since 2021, this initiative has brought together over 200 poets working in approximately 140 languages, some with very few speakers but with a shared commitment to revitalizing what was forcibly taken from them. Each new poem created in a minoritised language revitalises that language and empowers the artists who work with it. Displaying that poem alongside dozens of literary creations in similar linguistic situations adds a small but important drop to a community frequently deprived of access to its own culture.
Although the committee generally prefers a different poet to participate in each year, the committee understand that, for some languages, having even one poet contributing is already an incredible achievement. For this reason, the committee encourage you to ensure your language is represented in this year’s marathon.
Deadline for submissions: February 14, 2025.
What you need to submit
Detailed information and guidelines about the submission can be found here in English (also available in French and Spanish). You will need to submit three things: a video, a text file, and a description.
First, the video should be:
- read/recited by its author in the original language
- recorded horizontally (panoramic mode)
- have a resolution of 1920 x 1080
- ideally be between 30 seconds and 1 minute in length (short videos are preferred), and no longer than 1:30 minutes
- have no overlaid text, edition or post-production — just the poet reciting the poem
- checked before sending: check the audio is clear and can be heard in playback
Second, provide a text file with the poem and its translations. Ideally, in columns facing each other. If it is not written in the Latin alphabet, please also include a transcription.
Third, please write a couple of sentences (250 characters) to contextualize the language.
To submit, upload your files to a Drive (Drive, WeTransfer, Dropbox, etc.) and send a link by email to pen.tlrc@gmail.com, along with any questions you may have.
About the Translation and Linguistic Rights Committee
The PEN International Translation and Linguistic Rights Committee promotes the right of all languages to be written, read and heard, whether they are spoken by millions of people or just by a few. Through projects, events, publishing and campaigning, the Committee encourages readers and writers to explore writing from cultures other than their own.
Founded in Stockholm in 1978, the Committee played a leading role in creating the Universal Declaration of Linguistic Rights, 1996. It adopted the Girona Manifesto for Linguistic Rights, a ten-point document designed to defend linguistic diversity around the world, which expresses the goals of the Universal Declaration as well as the aims of the Committee.
The current Chair of the Translation and Linguistic Rights Committee is Urtzi Urrutikoetxea, who is also Chair of Basque PEN / Euskal PENeko burua.
