Festival Internacional de Poesía de Medellín

The 21st annual Festival Poesía (Poetry Festival) kicked off on July 2nd. What an incredible event: a week of international poets reading all around the city. We caught the opening ceremony at Teatro Carlos Vieco near Pueblita Paisa. The afternoon opened with a little piece of heaven: Madosini Latozi Mpahleni, a South African poet and musician. The type of music she’s performing is called Xhosa, which refers to the Bantu speaking peoples of southeastern South Africa. She’s playing the Umrhube, which, for all you non-Bantu speaking folks, is the “mouth bow.” The man with her is Pedro Espi-Sanchis, a Spanish-born South African and an expert in indigenous African music. He’s playing a homemade flute.

Camera: Kodak zi8 @720p

Here’s Cees Nooteboom, a Dutch poet who’s said to be short-listed for the Nobel. He read in both Dutch and Spanish, and came off as big-hearted and magnanimous in both languages.

Night fell. Here’s Kwame Dawes, a Ghanaian-born Jamaican poet.

There was a bit of drama when a small electrical fire broke out and the whole stadium was plunged into darkness (my battery also failed, coincidentally, and I didn’t get a new one in fast enough to catch the fire). Hardly anybody left, even with the lights out. The energy changed, people started cheering, shouting warm encouragements. Here’s a spontaneous song about Che Guevara, which came on the heels of a poem about Che by Atahol Behramoglu, a Turkish poet.

And finally, why not close the evening with another slice of heaven. Here’s a beautiful song by Chiwoniso Maraire, a U.S.-born Zimbabwean, about the strength of women. The lights were still off, so the stage is lit (dimly) by a single spot hooked to a generator. Maraire is seated — the woman standing is her translator. The video isn’t much for the eyes but the sound speaks for itself. That enchanting instrument, by the way, is called a Mbira, a member of the lamellophone family, and this particular type of Mbira is called a Nyunga Nyunga. What a sound.