Just a few minutes from Les Invalides, at 30 Rue de Bourgogne, a small door leads to one of Paris’s most unique literary venues. There’s no huge stage or program like in a traditional theater: at the Club des Poètes, evenings are spent around tables, enjoying a drink, dinner, and texts recited aloud.
The venue has been around since 1961, when it was founded by the poet Jean-Pierre Rosnay and his wife Tsou with a fairly simple idea: to take poetry out of books and bring it back into conversations, meals, and everyday life. More than sixty years later, the concept has remained virtually unchanged.
Hugo, Baudelaire, or Rimbaud recited between courses
You can arrive early in the evening for dinner or simply to have a drink. Then, around 9 p.m., the conversations gradually fade away to make way for the recital. Depending on the evening, the program ranges from Victor Hugo, Baudelaire, Verlaine, Rimbaud, Apollinaire, and Aragon to authors from other parts of the world, such as Pablo Neruda, Federico García Lorca, Emily Dickinson, and Fernando Pessoa. The poems are recited, sung, and sometimes accompanied by music, creating a much more direct connection with the audience.
Here, poetry isn’t just part of the decor or the venue’s name—it truly is the focus of the evening. You can come with an encyclopedic knowledge of Rimbaud or without having opened a poetry collection since high school.
It’s a rather different way to spend an evening in the 7th arrondissement, especially just a few blocks from the ministries and major institutions that usually give the neighborhood a much quieter atmosphere.
Location: Club des Poètes, 30 rue de Bourgogne, 75007 Paris
Hours: Tuesday through Saturday from 7 p.m. to 1 a.m.