We launched the Poetry Days in Liepāja with one of the most prominent and influential French poets of the 19th century, Charles Baudelaire, played by the Liepāja Theatre actor Leons Leščinskis with an accompanied piano performance by the musician Viktors Boks at the Liepāja Interior Museum, Madame Hoyer's Guest House.
The poetry readings featured excerpts from Charles Baudelaire's most celebrated collection of poems, "Les fleurs du mal" (1857), which provoked strong critical and reader responses upon its publication.
Charles Baudelaire's first poems were published in the magazine "L'Artiste" in 1843-1844. In 1857, Baudelaire's most popular poetic collection, "Les fleurs du mal" was published, causing so much public shock that the censors fined Baudelaire and had six poems removed from the collection, deeming them too inappropriate.
In 1861, the collection was republished, with alterations and additions by the author. This volume of poems is considered to be the pinnacle of Baudelaire's oeuvre. It ushered in the era of European modernism.
The full Poetry Days programme in Liepāja is available here: www.liepaja.lv/dzejasdienas2022