Tickets

Walk : Michikusa - Wild grasses along the way

Outdoor
Michikusa Dao Cao Herbes folles et arbres dans la ville 2

Sunday 20 September
15:30 - 16:30

Price: Gratuit - Gratis - Free Language: French Location: Outdoors

with

Florent Toniello

Presentations

Michikusa (道草). Wild grasses and trees in the city Do we still hear the voices of the trees planted straight and tall in the streets, amidst the heavy traffic? During this walk — which will take us in particular through Reine-Verte Park, almost hidden away at the heart of an urban block in the neighbourhood — Florent Toniello will read excerpts from collections published by Michikusa Publishing, a Luxembourgish publishing house whose Japanese name evokes those stubborn weeds that grow along the roadsides. The verses will celebrate the poetry of nature and travel, inviting you to wander without fear of wasting time… before returning to the clamour of the city.
Poetic walk

Michikusa Publishing Luxembourg is an independant publishing house created in 2022 by Marianne, Zsuzsanna and Robert with the goal of promoting niche poetry especially in the field of nature and travel writing. 道草Michikusa is a Japanese term meaning ‘grass on the sideway’ and is part of a Japanese expression meaning ‘to lose time along the way’.

Website

Florent Toniello

A poet with a deep love of nature and the music of language, a keen reader — and occasional author — of science fiction, Florent Toniello blends most of his passions into a unique mix in this new collection. From Iceland, which he visited in the summer of 2023, he brought back words associated with minerals, plants and animals. He then patiently wove these into a narrative of poetic prose during his stay at the Literarisches Colloquium Berlin in April and October 2024, recounting an extraterrestrial being’s discovery of Earth. How does a being from another world experience the landscapes here? Will the protagonist ever see her home world again? Why does her wanderings not lead her to encounter any human beings? Through the questions that arise, readers will be able to superimpose their own perspectives on our planet—its beauty and the threats it faces—onto the text.

Our speakers

Florent TONIELLO portrait cred Paulo Lobo

Florent Toniello

Florent Toniello, born in 1972 in Lyon, began his career in the IT sector at a multinational company, working primarily in Brussels. In 2012, he moved to Luxembourg City for family reasons; there, he embarked on a new career as a proofreader, cultural journalist, and poet. He won first prize in Luxembourg’s National Literary Contest in 2015. This was followed by ten poetry collections published in Luxembourg, Belgium, and France, a play, as well as a novel and a collection of science-fiction short stories, all of which often explore themes related to the relationship between humanity and its natural environment. His latest work, *Hraun*, written during a writer’s residency at the Literarisches Colloquium in Berlin, recounts the journey—or ballad—through Iceland of an extraterrestrial entity discovering our planet. He regularly publishes book reviews as well as translations from German, English, Luxembourgish, and even Icelandic in various print and online journals. Committed to the oral tradition, he also enjoys reciting his own poetry and that of others at cultural events and festivals. In addition to his blog, accrocstich.es, he runs the website dailleurspoesie.com, dedicated to Francophone poetry written outside the borders of France.