Poetry for everyone, Poetry everywhere, Poetry with everyone in Tours this spring

For more than 20 years, and more recently through its Foundation, INDIGO has supported the Printemps des Poètes association in Tours, which spreads poetry throughout the city for the benefit of all audiences, young and old, and places it at the heart of the arts by forging links with cultural institutions, associations, social centers, and more. This year, the INDIGO Foundation has focused its support on initiatives related to the natural heritage of the Loire, with a specific focus on young people.

The Printemps des Poètes in Tours aims to make poetry accessible to all by giving and rekindling a taste for words and a desire to write:

• Bringing poetry to life in all its forms, through discovery and reading of texts, oral reading, transmission of texts, writing, linking poetry and music (instrumental and sung), visual arts with poster poems and frescoes
• Showing that words and poetry are an indispensable tool, making words everyone’s business
• Placing poetry at the heart of the arts
• Linking scientific knowledge and poetry

For its 27th edition, the teams behind the Printemps des Poètes in Tours focused on the Loire, exploring poetry in all its forms, from its source to the ocean. From March 2 to 31, more than 30 events were organized for audiences of all ages. Writing workshops, poetry walks, storytelling and scientific tours, shows, readings, and even poetry brigades punctuated the month of March in Tours.

This year, the INDIGO Foundation specifically funded a mediation program with a ninth-grade class at the Francis Poulenc middle school, sponsored by the young poet Tom Lévêque. The initiative had two main objectives: to help students discover the joy of words and poetry and to give them a better understanding of the Loire region, its wildlife, and its history. Over the course of the workshops, the students wrote a collection of poems, which was published in partnership with the publisher “10 pages au carré”.

INDIGO made the booklet available to its customers in the boutique of the Gare – Palais des Congrès car park.

We also celebrated this historic sponsorship with a meeting on March 28 with Roselyne Texier, secretary of the Printemps des Poètes association in Tours, and Bernard Pico, its president, along with the teams from INDIGO’s western regional management, including Jean-Baptiste Galiez, regional director, and François Jouve, sector director. The INDIGO Foundation was also present and represented by its General Delegate, Coline Chaumont. We were able to discover the Saint-Cosme Priory, the former home of Ronsard and home to the largest collection of Livres pauvres (books written and illustrated by poets and artists on scraps of paper), where numerous events related to the arts and poetry take place. This visit was followed by a tour of Simon Island, where the poems created during the workshops and mediation sessions were planted and displayed for everyone to enjoy.