Poetry

The rain began falling at six pm on a thousand odd heads in the amphitheatre. Thunder cracked and the sky fell in sheets of rain. Many people left, nearly as many stayed. At 10 o’clock, after six hours of recitals, Alhaji Susso from Gambia, the last of 57 poets, rose to the stage to close the 17th International Poetry Festival of Medellín. He sang and plucked the strings of his kora, and the soaked audience danced and clapped beneath umbrellas. When he finished and the audience sang out for more, nobody doubted that what so many poets had said was true. Medellín is the world capital of poetry.

This is no small achievement. In 1991 Medellín, the capital of Colombia's coffee region, was the most violent city in the world, and a global centre for drug trafficking. “The poetry festival was founded in [this] context as a macro form of cultural resistance,” says festival organiser Fernando Rendón. “It is a voice for peace, and a protest against injustice and terrorism, including state terrorism.”

The festival is now the largest of its kind in the world. Over eight days, free poetry recitals are held in public parks, university theatres, high-security prisons, and schools and libraries in poor, marginalised suburbs. To date, Medellín has hosted 820 poets from 142 countries, and many indigenous nations.

Such contact with foreign visitors is an anomaly in Medellín. The city’s infamy has served to isolate it from contact with the world. The massive green mountains that surround it are a geographic metaphor for seclusion. Penetrating the valley like dust in a vacuum, the words, thoughts and solidarity of 60 poets each year bring hope, interest and dialogue to a city that for too long has been a black stain on the world map, rather than a black dot. The poets, in turn, leave the city with love and gratitude for its people and their compulsive generosity.

“I’ve never experienced anything like this,” says Nepalese poet Chirag Bangdel. “Thousands of people come to hear our poems. They cheer and ask for our autographs. It’s like being a rock-star. I don’t want to leave. In fact, I’m looking for somebody here who might adopt me.”

Miguel Barnet, from Cuba, has similar impressions. “I’m accustomed to see masses of people come together with a cultural motive,” he tells an audience of thousands, “but I’ve never seen an amphitheatre full of so many people gathered to hear poetry. UNESCO must declare Medellín the international capital of poetry!”

With the exception of the current Medellín city council, the festival has never received support from any level of government in Colombia. The festival organisers are vocal critics of Colombian president Alvaro Uribe, and his government’s ongoing links to right-wing paramilitary groups.

As a voice of dissent, the festival is yet to receive the national and international attention it deserves, however last year it received a Right Livelihood Award, also known as ‘The Alternative Nobel Peace Prize’, and the annual event receives funding from several European nations including Germany and Switzerland.

Swedish Poet Bengt Berg and his wife dance with local kids at La Cruz, a suburb of displace people, while Gambian poet Alhajir Susso plays the kora.

Colombia is still a country at war, but Medellin is no longer a place where the majority live in fear. Walking to a poetry recital with friends, two young men on a motorcycle speed around a corner and pass us, accelerating up a busy street. “Ten years ago,” say my friends, “one would turn the corner and expect to see a dead body. There’s a saying here – a threat – ‘I’ll send the guys on the motorbike.’ Two men on a bike meant hit-men.”

We turn the corner. A man with a trolley sells juicy slices of papaya and fresh pineapple rings for 30 cents, and a lady walks in the opposite direction selling cups of sweet black mountain coffee from a thermos.

A repercussion of enforced isolation is authenticity. City buses are boisterous with local rhythms, and restaurants serve regional dishes. It has also made its people resilient, resourceful, independent and curious.

Jorge, 12 years old, is one of many people gathered to hear poetry in his primary school high above the city centre. In his suburb, La Cruz, 95 per cent of the population are internally displaced, victims of the ongoing civil war in Colombia’s mineral rich rural areas. “I don’t know much about poetry,” he says, “but it’s cool to see so many new people here, people from Africa and Europe. I like to hear them talk in different languages, and to hear their stories.”

Typical of Colombia kids, Jorge asks me more questions than I ask him. The first two questions are givens, as though they were taught in school: Where are you from? And, are you happy here in Medellín?

The Medellín International Poetry Festival is an annual opportunity for people to break open the vacuum, and say ‘yes’ to the latter.