Philippine poets invited to Medellin: Alice Sun-Cua, Marjorie Evasco Gemino H Abad and Alfred Yuson
By Gémino H. Abad Translation by Rafael Patiño
I am truly deeply honored by the invitation to be the first speaker in the Adrian Cristobal lecture series of UMPIL. I should quickly add, though, that only upon encouragement from National Artist Virgilio Almario and Prof. Vim Nadera, chairman of UMPIL, did I accept with much reservation and not a little embarrassment. Why so? – simply because, to my mind, there are more worthy speakers who would do Adrian Cristobal, chair emeritus of UMPIL, much more honor. READ MORE
Poetry events are millennial occasions, facing the sun in the center of mystery, facing the celestial inclemency, woven with the thread of light coming from the sidereal abysses. Poetry seems to touch the enigma that we are, in order to shape the attainments of our dreams, the source of all songs, with the clay of our imagination. In its human dimension, the sense of poetry is the possibility of consecrating our being to song to again feel the celestial rhythm in which we travel, to reveal to us the keys to build a world on a level with our dreams, on a level with our desire as humanity, as a voyage in the light in which history is seen as an adventure film in the Cinema Earth. In this time of great transnational business, in which a great part of the world population perishes, poetry resists and opens ways. READ MORE
The International Poetry Festival of Medellín is evidently an essential act that delves deeply into the human soul, that exalts the celebratory condition of being and inscribes it in the context of the exercise of freedom, from the power of poetry. Its light has a bearing on conscience, on the perception of the public for whom the spirit prospers, resisting the affronts of a reality overwhelmed by violence and degradation. On the level of its dreams, the Festival is visualized as ceremonial center in which poetry becomes a channel connecting us with the sacred. READ MORE
John Agard: Playwright, poet, short-story and children's writer John Agard was born on 21 June 1949 in British Guiana (now Guyana). He worked for the Guyana Sunday Chronicle newspaper as sub-editor and feature writer before moving to England in 1977, where he became a touring lecturer for the Commonwealth Institute, travelling to schools throughout the UK to promote a better understanding of Caribbean culture. In 1993 he was appointed Writer in Residence at the South Bank Centre, London, and became Poet in Residence at the BBC in London, an appointment created as part of a scheme run by the Poetry Society in London. READ MORE
The line of Friedrich Hölderlin, Human destiny is one single celestial rhythm, has been the motto of the XX International Poetry Festival of Medellín, held from 8 to 17 July, 2010. A luminous parade of the poetic word –which connected us to a single celestial rhythm– expressed by one hundred poets from fifty-eight countries and the five continents, consolidated the city of Medellín as a radiant center of universality and intercontinental gathering through the poetic word, giving new senses to existence and tracing new paths to the spiritual, emotional and congregational future of societies wounded by the scourge of violence and social exclusion READ MORE
When one does not see a political solution for the bloody war that has ravaged during more than four decades Colombia, the most violent Latin-American country, according to the Human Poverty Index; when poverty and material, spiritual and moral destitution increase in one of the countries with more biodiversity and natural resources in the world; when despair and dejection discourage millions of persons who suffer under such a painful historical circumstance; it is then that the sweet dream of a life renewed from the ground up becomes inevitable, unavoidable, like the birth of a new country. READ MORE
By Prof. R.K. Bhushan
From www.liberiaseabreeze.com
Imtiaz Dharker (1954-) lives with the passion of an undaunted rebel, not to retreat and not to fail. The intensity and eloquence of her life and poetic accomplishment have dumbfounded the male-chauvinists and have left her female counterparts in soaring spirits not only inside the Islamic social, cultural and religious setup but also outside it. That is why her life and poetry make a fascinating study in the crushing indictment of the suppressive prescriptions against the freedom, dignity and respectful living of women, especially in the Muslim society. READ MORE
By Althea Romeo-Mark
From www.liberiaseabreeze.com
I have learned from attending writers’ workshops over the years that a poet is a sculptor. Some of the best teachers I have had include Maya Angelou, Allan Ginsberg, and Jerome Judson. They taught me that a freshly composed poem is like a block of marble or a large piece of wood that must be chiseled and carved until it reaches a shape of perfection that pleases the eye. Similarly with a raw poem, you chisel away excess words until you reach a form that is concise, concrete, and conveys meaning in brief, vivid phrases that evoke a response in the reader. READ MORE
Youth of delight! come hither
And see the opening morn,
Image of truth new-born.
Doubt is fled, and clouds of reason,
Dark disputes and artful teazing.
Folly is an endless maze;
Tangled roots perplex her ways;
How many have fallen there!
They stumble all night over bones of the dead;
And feel -- they know not what but care;
And wish to lead others, when they should be led.
When the human spirit is beset by the crossfire of death, poetry revives it. Since the dawn of humanity poetry congregated, celebrated life, initiated in the mysteries, and sweetly passed on knowledge. READ MORE
Seamus Heaney published his earliest poems under the pseudonym “Incertus”, meaning “uncertain”. Perhaps his reticence was understandable. As every schoolchild now knows, Heaney grew up on a farm where what counted was your skill with a spade or a plough – not a pen. READ MORE
"What a set! What a world!" Matthew Arnold exclaimed after reading an account of Shelley's private life. What would he have said of the private life of Robert Graves and Laura Riding as described by Graves's nephew Richard? READ MORE
For quite a while now, those who knew Czeslaw Milosz couldn't help wondering what it was going to be like when he was gone. In the meantime, he more than held his own, writing away for all he was worth in Krakow, in his early 90s, in a flat where I'd had the privilege of visiting him twice. READ MORE
The Constitutional Court of Colombia in a recent ruling declared executable the Law of the Congress of the Republic declaring the International Poetry Festival of Medellín a Cultural Heritage of the Nation.
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We present the audiovisual memory of participation from invited poets to the International Poetry Festival of Medellin. This anthology is composed for 343 poets from 133 countries of five continents. VIDEOS
The International Poetry Festival of Medellín actively
spreads Colombian poetry in the world. Since 2002,
Prometeo
has developed the Colombian section of Poetry
International of The Netherlands, with information and
poems in Spanish (translated into English) of 61 Colombian poets, including three new poets
every quarter.
