Writing is one of the easiest ways of expressing yourself.  

At first glance our aim is to create poetry nights, but when you take a closer look you can see that our aim is to create a community for poets and poetry lovers in Maastricht, giving everyone who wishes a podium to perform their work for an audience. 

We believe that literature is one of the most accessible and low-barrier forms of art. As everybody tells stories. Literature educates, entertains, gives comfort, connects and can take many different shapes. Literature is a natural form of expression – many people start to write from a personal feeling and/or urge. Also, writing is, for a lot of people, part of their job or they just simply write as a means to communicate with friends and family. Writing is so self-evident in our society that many people take literature as a starting point for their self expression. Because of this, it is important to us to organise low friendly accessible poetry nights in Maastricht.

This approach is very important to us because we want to make poetry nights as open and inclusive as possible. We want to give everyone the chance to experience poetry and make new connections with like-minded people. We want to offer everyone the chance, regardless of their background, income, ideology, restrictions or any other criterion, to be part of a literature community.

Therefore the aim of Puss’Poetry is to create a literature community in Maastricht, to stimulate and exchange knowledge on writing and art, and to offer writers a stage to perform their work. 

To combine our passionate desire to awaken the poetry community in Maastricht whilst showcasing our selected talent. Puss'Poetry therefore  always has a curated lineup followed by a participatory element. The night starts with some music from a local musical talent, followed by four programmed international poets and finally is followed by the open stage setting. 

The invited poets are mostly a mixture of experienced poets and poets who have never performed on a stage before. Through this approach, young writers can connect with more experienced writers. This mixture results in a safe space which, hopefully, inspires the audience to go on to the stage themselves. And keep in mind: it’s totally fine to be nervous!

All the poets are introduced by us, we moderate the night and make sure that there is an atmosphere of safety, energy and trust. 

Even though the main performative language is English, every language is welcome! The open stage also functions for us as a means to scout poets for upcoming editions.

The Puss' Poetry foundation wants to contribute to a safe and fair cultural sector. Therefore we work with the Fair Practice code, Cultural Governance Code and Code Diversity & Inclusion.