the Jacques de Decker Grant awardees 2025
This year, the Jacques De Decker Beurs is awarded to Kate Paul, Roya Shadmand, and neneh noï, who will host a weekend for those curious about collective practices of poetry.
The trio has collaborated extensively to create alternative writing and performance events. In 2024 they organised …It is Pathetic. I love it at the Performing Arts Forum (PAF), a week-long gathering dedicated to experiments in performative reading and new approaches to writing as a social, political, and embodied practice. Since then, they have hosted Anonymous Poet Society meetings in London, Antwerp, Brussels, and France.
collective practices of poetry
No one needs “to be a writer” to participate. Their aim is to reach beyond authorship and conventional ideas of being an artist or poet. Their approach emphasises play; the physical translation of text into gesture; live sound experimentation; and explorations of voice. The activities throughout the weekend de-emphasise perfect, literal understanding in favour of the play and curiosity that arise through lapses of comprehension.
The weekend will open with an Anonymous Poet Society meeting, during which participants read each other’s anonymised writings aloud, engaging with the social dynamics of secrecy and authorship. They have found that this creates a safe “container” for exchange and play, shaping the dynamics of the gathering.
As part of their programme, they will also invite participants to contribute their own interventions, issuing an open call for experimental work in poetry and performance. Interventions will be selected with linguistic diversity and language exchange as key criteria.
congratulations from the jury
This year the jury consisted of Emilie Kabongo, who is responsible for outreach and audience engagement at the Kunstenfestivaldesarts, Frederik Willem Daem, who is a Brussels based author and screenplay writer, and two members of the Passa Porta team.