The International Poetry Festival in Medellín was founded in 1991, amid a climate of violence and death, as an expression of poetry's capacity for mobilization and the rebuilding of a social fabric lacerated by explosive disintegration.  

The rapid progression of the Festival's growth (which is directly related with the number and quality of the more than 747 participant poets representing 131 countries of the five continents, added to the great public attendance to all the Festival's acts) and by other side the consolidation of publications, poet's organizations and international poetry festivals in the world, can anticipate a bigger influence of poetry in human society.

The poets of the world, the directors and representatives of the diverse contemporary projects (festivals, congresses, schools, poetic publications, etc) have an inmense responsability with humanity at the present time.

People's and nature's life are now under threat. The voracity of the big predators has no limits. Their only goal is their cold convenience, without any scruples or principles.

Sacred earth does not belong to us. We belong to her.

We are still on time to initiate a global poetic movement for the defense of life.

The word is now yours.