While Colombia hasn’t yet inspired many internationally acclaimed poets, it has given birth to an international poetry event that is the biggest of its kind in the world.
For over a week, the Festival Internacional de Poesía de Medellín (International Poetry Festival of Medellín) hosts free poetry recitals in parks, universities, schools, libraries and even high-security prisons.
And while exquisite international poets may frown at the sheer scale of the event – the audience in Medellín passionately applauds the next rising star who may well have traveled a long way from home to perform a few short sentences.
The festival attracts writers, poets and intellectuals from all over the world and has become a platform for free speech.
No doubt, this is exactly what Fernando Rendón dreamed of when he founded the festival in 1991, amid a climate of violence, as an expression of poetry’s capacity to be a voice for peace and a cultural resistance against injustice.
The festival has never received support from any level of government in Colombia, with the exception of the current Medellín city council.
Yet in 2006 it won the prestigious Right Livelihood Award, which is given to those “working on practical and exemplary solutions to the most urgent challenges facing the world today,” and is often referred to as the Alternative Nobel Prize.
International Poetry Festival
July 08 – July 17
(+57 4) 541 2944 / 412 7133
www.festivaldepoesiademedellin.org
