Monaco Poetry Night and Day 2026

Monaco Poetry Night and Day will take place on March 26 and 27, 2026, under the High Patronage and in the presence of HRH The Princess of Hanover, at the initiative of Monte-Carlo Société des Bains de Mer and the Hôtel Hermitage Monte-Carlo, Hotel of Connoisseurs. Monaco, poetry: yes! In the face of the world's turmoil, what other force can we oppose than poetry? Monaco, a place of peace, culture, and beauty, also has a role to play in poetry. The first edition of Monaco Poetry Night and Day begins modestly. One night, one day, perhaps the future will be written in the plural.

Night: Thursday, March 26

On March 26, dinner at the Hôtel Hermitage, preceded at 7:00 p.m. by a recital by actor Lambert Wilson, accompanied on piano by Karol Beffa. Lambert Wilson will recite and sing poems, primarily in French, but also in English, Italian, and Spanish. The translations will be projected in the Belle Epoque room.

The Yannick Alléno Signature Dinner will begin at 8 p.m., opened by an exceptional recitation, the details of which we are keeping secret. Then, poets and writers Louis-Philippe Dalembert and Pascal Bacqué will recite their own poems-who said poetry was dead? At the piano, Karol Beffa will improvise "musical translations" of the poems.

And echoing the opening, a female voice, also a secret, will close the dinner.

Close? Not quite! The evening will only end for those who, satiated with fine cuisine and poetry, wish to leave. For the others, the most valiant poets: after-party! Poetic jam session. During coffee, anyone who wishes may stand and recite or read the poem of their choice, in the language of their choice. The translation will appear instantly in the room. And Karol Beffa will once again lend himself to improvisation on the poems that inspire him. This finale may well be a little chaotic, and all the better for it! As the poet said: "Order is the pleasure of reason, but disorder is the delight of the imagination."

Date: Friday, March 27

10:00/11:00 AM: Meet Thierry Consigny

The Misery and Splendor of Poetry
Thierry Consigny, curator of Monaco Poetry Night and Day, is the author of *Léopoldine* (Grasset), *La Mort de Lara* (Flammarion), and *Le Soleil, l'herbe et une vie à gagner* (with his son Charles, Lattès).

Why does poetry, in fact, repel us as much as it delights us? What makes it so indispensable? These are the questions he will address with the audience, illustrated by poems, both well-known and lesser-known.

11:30 a.m./12:30 p.m.: Meet Pascal Bacqué

Writer and poet, Pascal Bacqué is the author of several poetry collections, including *Imperium*, *Ode to the End of the World*, *The Harangued Path*, and *Doubles*, as well as a play, *France*, and a prose work, *The War of the Earth and Men*, a new edition of which is forthcoming.

Some intellectuals see Pascal Bacqué as a "Mallarmé of our time." His poetry is both epic and metaphysical, scrutinizing the world and tirelessly seeking to transcend it. His remarkably free play with forms, both classical and modern, is strangely rooted in the poet's Jewish heritage. He is simultaneously imbued with language and settled in another world, from which he comes as a voluntary stranger to perhaps the most beautiful, and perhaps the most threatened, of all languages. To save language is to save humanity. An enigmatic beauty, even if it keeps her at a distance, serves, in his eyes, to preserve the treasure of words like a jewel in a case.

2-3 p.m. Meet Louis-Philippe Dalembert

Louis-Philippe Dalembert, born in 1962 in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, writes in French and Creole. He is the recipient of the Prix Goncourt de la Poésie (Goncourt Prize for Poetry) in 2024 and the Prix littéraire de la Fondation Prince Pierre de Monaco (Prince Pierre of Monaco Foundation Literary Prize) in 2025.

A resident at the Villa Medici in 1994 and 1995, writer-in-residence in Jerusalem and Berlin, as well as at Sciences Po in 2021, he has been a visiting professor at numerous American universities, notably the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. Since 2017, with *Avant que les ombres s'effacent* (Before the Shadows Fade), his novels have been published by Sabine Wespieser Éditeur. Mur Méditerranée, 2019, won the Prix de la Langue Française and was a finalist for the Prix Goncourt des Lycéens. Milwaukee Blues, 2021, was a finalist for the Prix Goncourt, winner of the Prix Patrimoines de la BPE and the Prix des Lecteurs des Ecrivains du Sud. Among his most recent poetry collections, published by Bruno Doucey, are: En marche sur la terre, 2017, Cantique du balbutiement, 2020, and L'Obscur Soleil des corps, 2025.