XIX International Poetry Festival of Medellín July 4 to 11, 2009
The XIX International Poetry Festival
of Medellín is upon us
Poetry reading XVIII International Poetry Festival of Medellin
¡When! ¡When, joy of the season, with all our sovereign hands,
we will take the promised fruits for our hunger, promised to our thirst, and owed to our name!
(Jacques Rabenamanjara)
With three months remaining before the opening ceremonies of the XIX International Poetry Festival of Medellín, preparations for this grand encounter among poets from around the world advances systematically.
Next July, here, where the air is serene, in the midst of the country's constantly changing political situation, we will present a new wave of contemporary poetic expression by accomplished protagonists who will further the legend of the poetic imaginary begun in Medellín during the last century's final decade, making evident again for the country and the world that another spiritual, cultural, and social reality is possible in our time, nourishing the vocation for dialogue, for peace and justice for a people long-tired of an endless, four-decade-long war.
The International Poetry Festival of Medellín is opposed to the sterile, destructive use of weaponry and also to the (ab)use of war as a means of dissolving the numerous forms of interpretation and construction of being, and it reaffirms its belief that poetry is the highest instance of the intelligence of plural language among the distinct and the opposed, proofs of which are its very existence over the course of 19 years, its being awarded an Alternative Nobel Prize in 2006, and its recent recognition by the Senate of the Republic as part of Colombia's cultural patrimony.
For poetry to share its fruits with us here in our land we need a legion of dream collectors so that we might carry in our arms those dreams toward a new life. We need language and poetic action to infiltrate those interstices of daily life throughout the world, curing the infirmities of our societies and breathing life into a new reality capable of abolishing the archetypal act of death and ending at long last the pillage of the garden of beauty.
The poets who have confirmed their participation are: Rashidah Ismaili AbuBakr (Benin), Fatma Quandil (Egypt), Lenrie Peters (Gambia), Ifi Amadiume (Nigeria), Amadou Lamine Sall (Senegal), Daniel Kunene, Zindzi Mandela (South Africa), Kangni Alem (Togo), Tahar Bekri (Tunisia), Mercedes Roffé (Argentina), Matilde Casazola (Bolivia), Nicole Brossard (Canada), Jotamario Arbeláez, Carlos Vásquez, Eugenia Sánchez Nieto, Miguel Iriarte, Tallulah Fórez, Nicolás Suescún, Álvaro Miranda, Joaquín Mattos Omar, Liana Mejía, Carlos Enrique Sierra, Omar Castillo, Gilma de los Ríos, Víctor Raúl Jaramillo, Luisa Aguilar, Jesús Gómez, Angye Gaona, Luis Galar (Colombia), María Montero, Graciela Huinao (Chile, Mapuche Nation), Rodrigo Verdugo (Chile); Roberto Fernández Retamar (Cuba), Yvon Gordon Vailakis (Ecuador), Mario Noel Rodríguez (El Salvador); Rosa Chávez (Guatemala, Maya Nation), John Agard, Grace Nichols (Guyana), Édouard Glissant (Martinica), Francisco de Asis Fernández, Gloria Gabuardi (Nicaragua), Moravia Ochoa (Panama), José Luis Ayala (Perú, Aymara Nation), Yván Silén (Puerto Rico), Arthur Sze, Jayne Cortez, Jack Hirschman (United States), Antonio Trujillo, William Osuna (Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela), Fadhil Al-Azzawi, Anwar Al-Ghassani (Iraq), Usha Akella (India), Fathieh Saudi (Jordan), Fuad Rifka (Lebanon), Ghassan Zaqtan (Palestine), Alice Sun-Cua (Philippines), Hussein Habasch (Syria), Nguyen Quang Thieu (Vietnam), Peter Holvoet-Hanssen (Bélgium), Jan Wagner (Germany), Ersi Sotiropoulos (Greece), Sigurður Pálsson (Iceland), Guido Oldani (Italy), Inger Elisabeth Hansen, Torgeir Schjerven (Norway), Agneta Falk (Sweden), Jorge Riechmann (Spain), Klaus Merz (Switzerland); Henk van der Waal (The Netherlands), Aazam Abidov (Uzbekistan).
The Festival includes140 activities, which involve 70 poets of almost 45 countries; activities includes 93 collective poetry readings, 11 individual readings with discussions and 15 events in other 10 Colombian cities. At the same time, 14 poetry workshops, five courses (of three sessions each one) and five conferences will take place within the framework of XIII the Poetry School of Medellín.
