23rd International Poetry Festival of Medellin. Symbol of coexistence and celebration of life

23rd International Poetry Festival of Medellin
6 to 13 July 2013

For Re-signification of Myth and Utopia

La Cite Botanique painting of poet and
artist Werewere Liking (Cameroon)

The 23rd annual International Poetry Festival of Medellin will be held from 6 to 13 July 2013, a symbol of resistance possible through the virtues of the poetic word that represents and unites us, to help transform places of fratricidal violence into spaces for coexistence and the celebration of life.

With the participation of 60 poets from 45 countries, from the far corners of the Earth, this new version of the festival will be dedicated to the poetic experience for the re-signification of Myth as memory that is foundational knowledge and of Utopia as acting reality that leads to a new humanism, freed from all the mistakes that sunk us into inequality and exclusion.

Myth as the supplier of a great legacy that must be preserved because it reminds us of the original flame that lights the path to the human experience reconciled with the world and its gifts, included in the processes of cultural growth and social justice.

In this perspective, the 23rd International Poetry Festival will appear in 150 cultural venues in the city of Medellín, municipalities in the metropolitan area, some municipalities of Antioquia, some cities of Colombia and locations at low-income neighborhoods, victims of violence and exclusion, with performances that are poetry readings by Colombian poets and poets from all around the world.

There will also be educational activities such as courses, workshops and conferences, in the context of the 17th International Schoolof Poetry. There will be an alternative program which will involve artists from different areas of art. The anthology of poems of poets participating in the Festival, printed in Volume 95 of the Poetry Journal named Revista Prometeo,will also be presented and distributed.

Invited poets up to the moment are Achour Fenni (Algeria), Jorge Fondebrider (Argentina), Les Wicks (Australia), Leonard Nolens (Belgium), Thiago de Mello (Brazil), Werewere Liking (Cameroon), Javier Bello (Chile), Jidi Majia (Popular Republic of China), Juan Manuel Roca, Santiago Mutis, Samuel Vásquez, Carlos Vásquez, Tallulah Flores, Álvaro Marín, Fernando Herrera, Lucía Estrada, Amparo Inés Osorio, Oscar González, Eufrasio Guzmán, Orietta Lozano, Víctor Raúl Jaramillo, Daniel Jimenez, Edgar Trejos, Robinson Quintero, Luis Fernando Macías, Everardo Rendón, Yolima Zuleta, Luz Andrea Castillo, Felipe Posada (Colombia), Anastasia Candre (Okaina-uitoto Nation, Colombia), Fredy Chicangana (Yanakuna Nation, Colombia); Juan Felipe López, Ronald Cano -Winners of II Prize to Young Poetry Medellin City and Metropolitan Area- Leidy Yaneth Vasquez Ramirez -First Mention, II Prize to Young Poetry Medellin City and its Metropolitan Area-, Gabriel Oukoundji (Congo), Oscar Cruz, José Rolando Rivero (Cuba), María Clara Sharupi (Shuar Nation, Ecuador), Ariruma Kowii (Quechua Nation, Ecuador), Gérard Noiret (France), Richard Gwyn (Gales), Monika Rinck (Germany), Rosa Chavez (Maya Nation, Guatemala), Josaphat-Robert Large (Haiti), K. Satchidanandan (India), Goenawan Mohamad (Indonesia), Moya Cannon (Ireland), Lorna Shaughnessy (North Ireland), Gerður Kristný (Iceland), Tiziana Cera Rosco (Italy), Lidija Dimkovska (Macedonia/Slovenia), Jeannette L. Clariond (Mexico), Tanure Ojaide (Nigeria), Jan Erik Vold (Noruega), Sasja Janssen (The Netherlands), Abadio Green Stocel -Manipiniktikinia- (Panama, Tule-Kuna Nation), Marra PL. Lanot (Philippines), Marco Martos (Peru), Krystyna Rodowska (Poland), Aitana Alberti (Spain/Cuba), Magnus William-Olsson (Sweden), Ingrid Fichtner (Switzerland), Zolani Mkiva (Southafrica), Maram al-Masri (Syria), Mildred Kiconco Barya (Uganda), Ilya Kaminsky (United States/Russia), William Osuna (Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela), Morela Maneiro (Kariña Nation, Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela), Jose Angel Fernández (Wayuu Nation, Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela), Nguyen Phan Que Mai (Vietnam), Sainkho Namtchylak (Tuva, Russia), Valentin Tszin (Russia). Musicians Héctor Buitrago and Juan Pablo Montoya from Conhéctor

With the Festival we return to an ancient rite of congregation through the foundational word, the word that creates and extends our memory, the word of the revealed poem, the essentialpoem, the poem that illuminates our collective and ancestralvoice.

Myths are a field of immanence that permeates us and weaves us together as a species, like beings in the dimension of the symbol. Myths continue to act at every moment. Their permanence is manifested even in the most insignificant events of our passage through the world of people and things.

Song and memory, both myth and language have supported us, our ships of dreams floating with the land. Myth and Utopia are in the crosshairs of poetry. Myth reverberates in poetry, as doesutopia. And poetry alsofounds the myth and promotes the utopia as a promise to be kept.

The 23rd International Poetry Festival of Medellin will be another exercise of solar spirit before the return of a heightened sense of that which is sacred, the return of myth in the symbols revealed in the voice of poets andaudience, in the word which regains its splendor.

What, if not gathering, is the true meaning of the Festival? A focal pointof cohesive forces that protect us from utter disintegration, from an abrupt separation that would confine us to a lack of communication. That has been, and is, the essence of this sovereign conjunction of a lucid community, acting as the main character of this celebration and identified with the messages brought by poets of important international backgrounds.

Human beings and their depths but also their dreams. Their struggle to get to the other side of their dreams, to solid ground, freed at last from the quicksand that we tread over as a species. Hence the need to enhance through poetry the awareness of an active utopia, beacon that illuminates a promising future after having overcome today's challenges with greatness. With the Festival,the listening skills of a population subjectto the chaos of incommunicability have been refined. In this celebration of life and existence, thousands of people raise their spirit and qualify their being.

Thus the actions of the International Poetry Festival have contributed and continue to contribute to the construction of an environment of real coexistence.

In this way we continue a process (since its foundation in 1991 to current date) that has had the participation of 1100 poets from 156 countries on five continents. These poets have contributed through their readings and educational activities in the light of poetry in 97 neighborhoods of the city of Medellín, thus helping to the development and spiritual growth of the community that has been gathered for inclusion and the creation of a social fabric thanks to the unifying capacity of poetry.

This celebration (a nation's cultural heritage affected by violence and fratricide) is at the crossroads of art, poetry, myths, that which is sacred, utopia, peoples, interculturalism, memory, and everyday things. It has enriched our lives and contributed and will continue to contribute to the construction of peace.

Published at November 9th, 2012.