Artikel
The International Poetry Festival in Medellín
18 januari 2006
Colombia was then suffering from the greatest violence in the last quarter of a century. The usual, old conflict with the guerrillas was compounded by aspate of car bombs and political assassinations by drug-traffickers, who had their main leader, Pablo Escobar, in Medellín, to counter the possibility of being extradited to the United States. Luis Carlos Galán, who was going to be president of Colombia, was assassinated in 1989.
As the team of the Festival say in their introductory remarks of the Colombian home page on PIW:
The history of Colombia is one of fratricide. In a moment marked by violence and the deterioration of life, in a scenario of bombs and deflagrations, the International Poetry Festival of Medellín arose in Medellín as an act of resistance and solidarity, directed toward the protection of the luminous side of life.
The history of Colombia is a history, some may think, of the deterioration of Colombians. But it is not so. What its history deteriorates is not the people of Colombia, it is the government of Colombia. But violence, which has punished us since we gained independence from Spain andin 1830 became a nation, kills the people of Colombia. And the governmentof Colombia promotes violence, and now makes peace with the worst murderers in our history. This is the dark side of life, and it is against this background that the International Poetry Festival in Medellín was founded. They did it, as theysay, to protect “the luminous side of life”, in other words, to protect peace, real peace, not the daily, horrible scenario of murder and death.
Death is, was ever present in Colombia, but the Festival, this incredible cultural event, is living proof that Colombians are good, intelligent, willing to listen rapturously and to applaud poets from all the continents. In the first version, that year, 13 Colombian poets read their poems before an audience of 2,000 persons. Last year there were 64 poets from 39 countries, who in groups of four or five, read from their poetry. All this took place in 77 readings in Medellín and in 18 other Colombian cities, before a total audience of some 80 to a 100 thousand visitors, mostly young people.
One of them, a fifteen-year old girl, said in 1998: “This is a revolution against what is happening in our country. We are tired of keeping silent when facing death and massacres. We must breathe, poetry is breathing.” The festival has also co-coordinated various projects of solidarity with Colombia. A Peace Summit was held last year, and an open letter circulated to the governments of the world, signed by 900 poets and writers of 115 countries, in an attempt to encourage the peace process in our war-torn country.
Founder Fernando Rendón has declared: “At its foundation, we thought – we had the illusion – that we could contain terror with poetry. Today we know that poetry cannot save mankind, but it can help.”
It can certainly help. His festival is the best window to the people of Colombia. Since 1991, 541 poets from 102 countries – soon covering two thirds of the 181 countries in the United Nations – have gone to Medellín and had that magicone-way trade with an audience that tickles the vanity of poets – at least it tickles mine – and that is also a sounding board on which we test our poetry in its truest communicative dimension: orally, through the spoken word. From readers of our books we get impressions, after they have – or haven’t – read them. Our listeners, on the contrary, are our captives, although free to clap, yawn, whistle or leave, furious, bored or deceived. Nothing like that happens in Medellín (or in the other cities of Colombia to which the Festival has extended itself, making it, in fact, almost a national poetry festival): the audiences – which sum by now nearly a million – are generous and perhaps too kind. They applaud after each poem – something that upsets certain exquisite poets – but they are generous and not devoid of a certain degree of good taste and judgement (they applaud the better poets more loudly) and certainly of an eagerness to understand, that is to say, to enjoy poetry, even if they are not readers of poetry or if they have merely gone to see the poets out of curiosity – and most of us are curious in one way or another.
They can see the world through the words of the poets; poets are the best interpreters of their countries. Many of them will want to read more poetry and all of them will have an intimation of the unity of humankind – of all that is common to us – broken by egoism and fanaticism. And we, Colombian poets, have the wonderful opportunity of hearing, and talking to, poets we had read, but mostly poets we hear for the first time, and surprise and delight us.
I have been invited twice to the Festival, in 1999 and 2003. In 1999, a poem by a Dutch poet stayed with me – it was one of those poems that I wished I had written. It is called ‘Creed’. The poet believes in a river that flows from the sea to the mountains, and he says that he does not ask anything from poetry but tracing “the map of that river”. He does not want to get water “breaking stones” but “taking water towards the rocks to transform the dry, black stone into a blue, watery stone.” He ends:
newspapers want it another way
they want to dye themselves in the dry, black of headlines
they raise dykes and force us
to step back.
That is to say, not to turn that dry, black stone into water, not to make the desert flower.
That year Hans Magnus Enzensberger was there. I had not seen him for nearly twenty years but I had read most of his translated books; however, the ever curious observer knew more about was happening in Colombia in those days. That year Lasse Söderberg, the cultivated Swedish poet, translator of Lorca and Borges and many other Spanish and Latin American poets of the 20th century, met and married Angela, a beautiful Colombian poet.
Last year, when he was invited again, he read a beautiful poem,‘Biography of Clay’. Its first part goes like this:
I am the clay.
Old and wrinkled
with gleaming muscles
swelling under the earth.
If only you knew
of my prodigious thirst,
my endless longing
to be sky.
But I am always pulled to the deep
by my own weight.
Last year, Gonzalo Rojas, the 85 year-old Chilean poet, who has justre ceived the Cervantes price, was also in Medellin and he read this youthful poem: I am of the air, of the air, like every mortal, of the great terrible flight and here I am on my way to the stars but I tell you again that we, men, are already so close to one another it would be a mistake, if the explosion itself is a mistake, it would be a mistake not to love each other. Also last year, Andrei Voznesensky, the great Russian poet, recited his famous poem, ‘I am Goya’ with an extraordinary force, transforming himself – soft-spoken and not in very good health – into a potent, prophetic,singer.
Jack Mapange, the national poet of Malawi, recalled his prison years – he was imprisoned three years for his radical poetry – in a poem called, ‘The stench of porridge’:
Why does the stench of porridge
With maggots and weevils floating,
The scorching heat trapped
Within reeking walls,
The irritation of shrilling
Cicadas and centipedes,
The hyenas forever hooing,
The scorpion's ugly sting
Splitting down the spine,
Track us wherever we hide?
In the poetry of Mapange or in that of Saadi Yousef, the Iraki poet that has lived twenty years in exile, and whose sad face revealed his suffering because of the occupation of his country, and in that of Amiri and Amina Baraka, the black American poets, we could see that dark side of life – dictatorship, discrimination, greed – which is persecuting poets, trying in vain to snuff out poetry’s message of solidarity, liberation and peace. This what the organizers of the Poetry Festival in Medellín call “the dignity of poetry”, or, “the essence of our search, the field where a shared presence [of poets and the public] consolidates the unity of the human spirit, and works towards a transformation of the world.”
Colombian poet Nicolás Suescún outlines the history of the International Poetry Festival in Medellín, and talks about his own experiences at the Festival.
The International Poetry Festival in Medellín was founded in Medellín in1991 by two young, idealistic but surprisingly practical Colombian poets, Fernando Rendón (also editor of the Colombian magazine of PIW) and Gabriel Jaime Franco, with an enthusiastic group of friends, who since 1988 were publishers of the poetry quarterly, Prometeo, that has dedicated issues to the aboriginal poetry of the Americas, African poetry, Algerian, Argentine, Chilean, Polish, Vietnamese and French poets, and also to specific themes such as the universe, poetry itself, work and play, madness, dreams and nightmares, the elements, war and paradise.Colombia was then suffering from the greatest violence in the last quarter of a century. The usual, old conflict with the guerrillas was compounded by aspate of car bombs and political assassinations by drug-traffickers, who had their main leader, Pablo Escobar, in Medellín, to counter the possibility of being extradited to the United States. Luis Carlos Galán, who was going to be president of Colombia, was assassinated in 1989.
As the team of the Festival say in their introductory remarks of the Colombian home page on PIW:
The history of Colombia is one of fratricide. In a moment marked by violence and the deterioration of life, in a scenario of bombs and deflagrations, the International Poetry Festival of Medellín arose in Medellín as an act of resistance and solidarity, directed toward the protection of the luminous side of life.
The history of Colombia is a history, some may think, of the deterioration of Colombians. But it is not so. What its history deteriorates is not the people of Colombia, it is the government of Colombia. But violence, which has punished us since we gained independence from Spain andin 1830 became a nation, kills the people of Colombia. And the governmentof Colombia promotes violence, and now makes peace with the worst murderers in our history. This is the dark side of life, and it is against this background that the International Poetry Festival in Medellín was founded. They did it, as theysay, to protect “the luminous side of life”, in other words, to protect peace, real peace, not the daily, horrible scenario of murder and death.
Death is, was ever present in Colombia, but the Festival, this incredible cultural event, is living proof that Colombians are good, intelligent, willing to listen rapturously and to applaud poets from all the continents. In the first version, that year, 13 Colombian poets read their poems before an audience of 2,000 persons. Last year there were 64 poets from 39 countries, who in groups of four or five, read from their poetry. All this took place in 77 readings in Medellín and in 18 other Colombian cities, before a total audience of some 80 to a 100 thousand visitors, mostly young people.
One of them, a fifteen-year old girl, said in 1998: “This is a revolution against what is happening in our country. We are tired of keeping silent when facing death and massacres. We must breathe, poetry is breathing.” The festival has also co-coordinated various projects of solidarity with Colombia. A Peace Summit was held last year, and an open letter circulated to the governments of the world, signed by 900 poets and writers of 115 countries, in an attempt to encourage the peace process in our war-torn country.
Founder Fernando Rendón has declared: “At its foundation, we thought – we had the illusion – that we could contain terror with poetry. Today we know that poetry cannot save mankind, but it can help.”
It can certainly help. His festival is the best window to the people of Colombia. Since 1991, 541 poets from 102 countries – soon covering two thirds of the 181 countries in the United Nations – have gone to Medellín and had that magicone-way trade with an audience that tickles the vanity of poets – at least it tickles mine – and that is also a sounding board on which we test our poetry in its truest communicative dimension: orally, through the spoken word. From readers of our books we get impressions, after they have – or haven’t – read them. Our listeners, on the contrary, are our captives, although free to clap, yawn, whistle or leave, furious, bored or deceived. Nothing like that happens in Medellín (or in the other cities of Colombia to which the Festival has extended itself, making it, in fact, almost a national poetry festival): the audiences – which sum by now nearly a million – are generous and perhaps too kind. They applaud after each poem – something that upsets certain exquisite poets – but they are generous and not devoid of a certain degree of good taste and judgement (they applaud the better poets more loudly) and certainly of an eagerness to understand, that is to say, to enjoy poetry, even if they are not readers of poetry or if they have merely gone to see the poets out of curiosity – and most of us are curious in one way or another.
They can see the world through the words of the poets; poets are the best interpreters of their countries. Many of them will want to read more poetry and all of them will have an intimation of the unity of humankind – of all that is common to us – broken by egoism and fanaticism. And we, Colombian poets, have the wonderful opportunity of hearing, and talking to, poets we had read, but mostly poets we hear for the first time, and surprise and delight us.
I have been invited twice to the Festival, in 1999 and 2003. In 1999, a poem by a Dutch poet stayed with me – it was one of those poems that I wished I had written. It is called ‘Creed’. The poet believes in a river that flows from the sea to the mountains, and he says that he does not ask anything from poetry but tracing “the map of that river”. He does not want to get water “breaking stones” but “taking water towards the rocks to transform the dry, black stone into a blue, watery stone.” He ends:
newspapers want it another way
they want to dye themselves in the dry, black of headlines
they raise dykes and force us
to step back.
That is to say, not to turn that dry, black stone into water, not to make the desert flower.
That year Hans Magnus Enzensberger was there. I had not seen him for nearly twenty years but I had read most of his translated books; however, the ever curious observer knew more about was happening in Colombia in those days. That year Lasse Söderberg, the cultivated Swedish poet, translator of Lorca and Borges and many other Spanish and Latin American poets of the 20th century, met and married Angela, a beautiful Colombian poet.
Last year, when he was invited again, he read a beautiful poem,‘Biography of Clay’. Its first part goes like this:
I am the clay.
Old and wrinkled
with gleaming muscles
swelling under the earth.
If only you knew
of my prodigious thirst,
my endless longing
to be sky.
But I am always pulled to the deep
by my own weight.
Last year, Gonzalo Rojas, the 85 year-old Chilean poet, who has justre ceived the Cervantes price, was also in Medellin and he read this youthful poem: I am of the air, of the air, like every mortal, of the great terrible flight and here I am on my way to the stars but I tell you again that we, men, are already so close to one another it would be a mistake, if the explosion itself is a mistake, it would be a mistake not to love each other. Also last year, Andrei Voznesensky, the great Russian poet, recited his famous poem, ‘I am Goya’ with an extraordinary force, transforming himself – soft-spoken and not in very good health – into a potent, prophetic,singer.
Jack Mapange, the national poet of Malawi, recalled his prison years – he was imprisoned three years for his radical poetry – in a poem called, ‘The stench of porridge’:
Why does the stench of porridge
With maggots and weevils floating,
The scorching heat trapped
Within reeking walls,
The irritation of shrilling
Cicadas and centipedes,
The hyenas forever hooing,
The scorpion's ugly sting
Splitting down the spine,
Track us wherever we hide?
In the poetry of Mapange or in that of Saadi Yousef, the Iraki poet that has lived twenty years in exile, and whose sad face revealed his suffering because of the occupation of his country, and in that of Amiri and Amina Baraka, the black American poets, we could see that dark side of life – dictatorship, discrimination, greed – which is persecuting poets, trying in vain to snuff out poetry’s message of solidarity, liberation and peace. This what the organizers of the Poetry Festival in Medellín call “the dignity of poetry”, or, “the essence of our search, the field where a shared presence [of poets and the public] consolidates the unity of the human spirit, and works towards a transformation of the world.”
© Nicolás Suescún
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