The first edition of the Continentales de la poésie festival has been postponed. The announcement was made on Monday, September 14, 2026, by Mustapha Kébir Ammi and Kaisse Ben Yahia, the event’s co initiators, in a statement.
The reason given? The need to consolidate all the institutional, organizational, financial and logistical conditions required to hold the first edition. “This decision was taken following an in depth assessment of the project’s progress and in consultation with our institutional partner. It reflects our desire to ensure that all the conditions necessary for the success of this first edition are fully in place,” the statement said.
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Organized in partnership with UNESCO, the event was conceived as a gathering in Morocco of poetic voices from all five continents. The ambition is to create a space where the world’s languages, cultures and imaginations can meet around the values of dialogue, peace, fraternity and creation.
Public readings, institutional meetings, exchanges with the public, the publication of a multilingual anthology and moments of intercultural dialogue were to take place over the two days, with the ambition of making Rabat a major center for international poetic and intellectual dialogue.
For the organizers, the postponement does not in any way call their commitment into question. “Such an ambition requires all institutional, organizational, financial and logistical conditions to be consolidated so that, from its launch, this first edition lives up to the cultural standing of the Kingdom of Morocco and the trust placed in us by the great poets who have agreed to join us,” they stressed.
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Kaisse Ben Yahia and Mustapha Kébir Ammi said the postponement reflects their desire to preserve “the ambition, credibility and international dimension” of the initiative, which is intended to become a major cultural event.
“Continentales de la poésie aims to make Morocco a meeting place for the world’s poetry and a permanent space for dialogue among peoples, languages and cultures,” they said.
The event is also part of the momentum surrounding “Rabat, World Book Capital 2026,” further strengthening the Moroccan capital’s role as a major international cultural hub.
Through this first edition, the initiators aim to establish a lasting cultural platform capable of bringing together poetic voices from around the world around the universal values of fraternity, creation, transmission and hope.
