In Cernier, the poetry festival in watering can resonate poetry in all its forms – rts.ch

“In a world where we can fear that our destiny no longer belongs to us. Consequently, it is more urgent than ever to forget that there is still a margin of choice and freedom. However, Poetry never ceases to remind us,” said the poetry festival in watering can on its website. However,

Dance, music, song, performance, slam, poetry is there in all its forms for the 23rd edition of the event. Nevertheless, The festival was “born from a first project in 2003 where I was asked to animate a garden competition whose theme was: on the courtyard side. Furthermore, on the garden side”, cernier, poetry festival watering can recalls in the show Vertigo of July 8 Vincent Held, artistic director of the event.

Launched at a dozen landscapers, the challenge turns into a stroll around music and poetry. “I looked for a title for this show. as it was in connection with nature, poetry in watering can were the title of this show which has become a festival in the following years,” added the director.

Poetry to survive – Cernier, poetry festival watering can

Among the multiple proposals of the festival. the Ludion company offers its “vagabond reveries” from July 11 to 13, an intimate concept-table in which the artist Edmée Fleury puts in dialogue of the songs of her vintage with the texts of the poets of which she was inspired during her twenty years of scenic adventures, in particular Baudelaire, Bernard Noël, Pierrete MICHELOUD, CORINNA TIMEY. She invites this game the actor Yves Jenny who gives the words to hear like no one.

“I have the cernier, poetry festival watering can impression that it is for my own survival that I like poetry, that I make poetry. In one of my songs. I say: ‘What to do with poetry if it no longer flowers our arid lands, if no one believes that its magic can still feed the empty bellies. I am a little desperate, I must admit.

Places that awaken the senses

The festival has four unusual spaces of representations: horticultural greenhouses. barn at the concerts, extraordinary gardens and the room of the spy. Places that awaken the senses, allow an intimate relationship between the public and the performers. “For a long time, we have invested the gardens. Not this year. but we will come back to it because it is a great place of representation,” says Vincent Held.

Since its inception, the event can count on regulars, an audience of the first edition which returns each year. “Of course. the theater is cernier, poetry festival watering can there too, but it is quite open, there are also young people even if the average age is between 40 and 70 years. (…) We program accessible shows that bring us something else through poetry. It is such a beautiful media poetry (…) I do not know where the poetry is starting and where the poetry ends,” concludes Vincent Held.

Interview by Anne Laure Gannac

Adaptation web: ld

Arrosoir poetry festival, Evologia site, Cernier (ne), from July 4 to 13, 2025.

“Vagabondes’ reveries” by Edmée Fleury, with Yves Jenny, Salle de l’Esplanade, Evologia, Cernier (ne), from July 11 to 13, 2025.