Rachel Clarke

A small festival in southern Sweden. With only a few celebrities. Far away from market pressures, Swedish and German artists and musicians experiment here. The atmosphere is reminiscent of the early Woodstock and Glastonbury festivals, or at least that's how the participants imagine it. The future of the festival is uncertain and therefore open!

Many donate their creativity and energy to the festival so that it can take place. Can poetry capture this special, delicate mood?

Should idealism be celebrated? Or should we keep the secret to ourselves?

The lockdown in 2020 cast the festival in a particularly nostalgic light for the poet. And so she decided: writing and talking about it falls under word of mouth, the most caring kind of marketing possible.

Memories of a Festival. Glemminge Bridge, Sweden.

Rachel Donaldson Clarke

In the Deep South
of Sweden, in June,
early summer winds brush full fields
every witch way in this region
waving red poppies
swaying white wheat,
in the midst of this ocean,
a barn, in the village of Glemmingebro.                                                              

Bob, experimental musician                    
a Berliner from Plymouth England                                  
dug for days to discover the floor                        
under the mud in the barn,                                                
on Björn and Johanna’s land,
To single-handedly stack to stand                        
tall under dark wooden rafters -                
red wine and whisky crates,
and an eclectic sound system.               
Now nothing more to do but chill and wait…     
in the calm before the storm…                             

Sunshine and cigarettes and the wild wild wind        
make the hands on the cowshed clock face spin.        

Fittingly first at the gate,                                                   
drifting in, Friday afternoon, late             
from Berlin, to celebrate her swan song                        
ex-Frankfurt drummer and rocker lady, Heike.                          
A laugh, a beer and a sarcastic joke later                               
she is at home here - and the rest of us with her.                   

In the hot early summer weather                                   
Swedes congregate from far corners                                         
of the land to celebrate life
and appreciate rare art treasures,                                                

Outside on the wooden trestle table                              
under a fluid blue, cloud-studded sky                               
by five pm, wine bottles tower like Babel                        
and artists and intellectuals                                               
fight like Cane and Abel                                         
here reigns freedom for the individual                                                       
until the evening’s magic descends.       

…

Duration of Storytelling Performance, approx. 15 Min.