23rd International Poetry Festival of Medellin
6 to 13 July 2013
"Towards a thousand years of peace for Colombia"
Closure 23rd Medellín International Poetry Festival
By Jairo Guzmán
Direction Committee 23rd Medellín International Poetry Festival
"If there is peace, spring will come"
On July 6, 2013, the solar splendor of the afternoon and the groups of people travelling from different parts of Medellín towards the Nutibara hill, summoned to be a part of the mythical audience of the Medellín International Poetry Festival, radiant in their collective conscience, reminded us of those solar rituals which celebrated the gifts and mysteries of Earth.
A contemporary experience, with the mythical essence of gathering around poetic vision, which becomes collective when a crowd, having honed its listening attitude, becomes a radiant unit, thanks to the unfolding of a great spiritual energy turned into a protective shield, through the powers of the poem resolved into the voice.
“Towards a thousand years of peace for Colombia” has been the motto, the message presented to all the local, national and world community during the 23rd Medellín International Poetry Festival, with the aim of promoting collective sensitivity through poetry, and thus contributing to the construction of a cultural and spiritual atmosphere, favorable to the advent of peace and thus to the end of fratricide, poverty, exclusion and social injustice". READ MORE
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. READ MORE
Invited poets were 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 (Cuba), 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), 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.
About Invited Poets
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Published at August, 2013.
