Two friends come together and bring a dream to life: That’s what the best adventure stories are made of, and like an adventure of some sort did it feel to be invited to Daniel Wenkel’s and Sascha Mühlenbeck’s Poetry Summer Slam – Open Air Edition. Daniel had dreamed up this event when he decided he wanted to have a garden party in the backyard of the house he’s renting an apartment in. Together with Sascha he derived the idea of a poetry slam event with and for friends, a familiar setup, a small group of excellent slam poets, a small, familiar group of guests, coming together to enjoy a wonderful evening: Barbeque, refreshing drinks, sundown and relaxed atmosphere included.
When I first heard of their plans I was immediately taken with the idea of a poetry slam “from on high”, for a garden full of friends. What a beautiful idea. So when Sascha asked me to be part of this and photograph the event I was more than happy to join.
And I have to say that anything I did imagine for this event paled against the experience of being there. In short: It was a gorgeous, wonderful event, as rounded in its character as it was entertaining in the program the poets put onto stage (or rather: roof terrace that served as such) and hospital in the surrounding and atmosphere Daniel and Sascha managed to bring on.
Poets of the evening where: Christian Bruns, Insa Kohler, Mr E, Butnikowsky, Jana Blasse, Fabian Navarro, Iris Schwarz and Tobi Katze.
A note on the edit of photos found in this blog entry: While in the final edit of the photo set you see on Flickr I tried to include at least one photo of each of the slam poets and balance the over abundance of shots of Daniel and Sascha with photos of others, this time I felt that the friendship between the two and the passion they’ve put into organizing and running this event was more than visible in the run of the evening and their interaction, and I felt that I should honor this in my edit this time. You can see the selection below as a peek into the event with a special focus that developed not in my initial reporting of the event but afterwards, with a certain intention behind it. Also, admittedly, both of them just made for the most interesting subjects of the evening.
