Berlin taken by poetry storm

A rain of poems landed on Berlin on Saturday, dispersed by German and Chilean helicopters with hopes of spreading a message of peace. Poems not bombs! Hopefully Berliners and residents of Berlin were tickled rather than re-traumatized:

Lasting for half an hour, the initiative was intended as a protest against war and a message of peace, as well as a celebration of the 200th anniversary of the independence of Chile. It was the fifth "poetry rain" project from Chilean art collective Casagrande, which has arranged previous poetry bombing events in Santiago de Chile (2001), Dubrovnik (2002), Gernika (2004) and Warsaw (2009) - all cities which, like Berlin, have suffered aerial bombings during their history.

Organisers say that just as wartime bombings were intended to "break the morale" of the inhabitants of a city, so the poetry bombing "'builds' a new city by giving new meaning to events of her tragic past and therefore presenting the city in a whole new original way".