Latin American Summary, June 3, 2024.
After several artistic actions in different settings, the Thirtieth edition of the Havana International Poetry Festival concluded. From the Wooden Street of the capital’s Historic Center, poets from Cuba and other nations shared their works with the public.
In Cuba pens from the world for the enjoyment of poetry
Good literature invites, especially if it involves a genre that overflows thanks to the artistic wealth of its authors, which is why the XXX Havana International Poetry Festival is today an essential event.
Until June 1, around 82 international poets from countries in America, Europe and Africa will meet in this capital to delight, together with the Cuban bards, with a meaningful verse and from the much that this extraordinary art of the word offers. written.
Reason why the event invites on this day readings and book and artistic presentations in the main hall of the Casa del Alba Cultural, while the International Writing Laboratory will take place in the gallery with the theme School of poetry, Introduction to hell of Dante, by Antonio Nazzaro.
Meanwhile, at the National Museum of Decorative Arts the public will once again approach Latin American poetry in the voices of Ángeles Mohedo (Spain), Octavio Jiménez (Mexico), Livio Ramírez (Honduras), Charo Guerra, Carlos Augusto Alfonso, Juan Nicolás Padrón , Julio Cesar Sánchez and Elizabeth Díaz (Cuba), among other authors.
The presentations of the Verso Amigo Project will travel on this occasion to various institutions in the El Vedado neighborhood such as the headquarters of the Cuban Association of the United Nations, the Manuel Saumell Elementary School of Music, and the Center for Youth Studies.
An online meeting with dialect poets from Italy will be hosted by the Abelardo Estorino Theater of the Ministry of Culture, and the Arte Habana Cultural Center will open its doors to the Seis/Nueve Erotic Literature Peña with guests Estefanía Yetzel (Mexico), Liudys Carmona and María Liliana Celorrio (Cuba).
The festival will also reach the La Casona Art Center, which includes an encounter with the trova of Pedrito Beritán, a monologue by the actor and comedian Kike Quiñones, as well as a show by the Nirvana Flamenco Company.
The event is dedicated this year to African poetry and the 90th anniversary of the birth of the recently deceased Cuban ethnologist, researcher and poet Natalia Bolívar.
The Havana International Poetry Festival enjoys great prestige in Cuba and outside of it, in turn it is an accumulation of many wills, efforts and generosities, considered the president of the meeting, Alex Pausides.
Poetry beats in Cuba, and in its heart Palestine
The Palestinian cause beat strongly today in the voices and hearts of national and foreign poets, who condemned the Israeli genocide in the Gaza Strip, at the XXX International Poetry Festival in Havana.
At the Meeting of Poets in Defense of Humanity, held in the El Reino de este Mundo Gallery of the José Martí National Library, in this capital, important defenders of the genre addressed other issues of current society such as climate change and the conflicts that They pass through other towns.
I think that poetry is essential in the world, today things have been said here with poets from different countries that call us to reflect and enlighten us, the poet and Hero of the Republic of Cuba Antonio Guerrero highlighted exclusively to Prensa Latina.
In his opinion, if poetry does not resolve a conflict, does not make us free or is incapable of eliminating a war, it is essential, however, to denounce and light that flame that we need, where we can find the meaning of life and the truth. , he expressed.
Poetry, he said, has to come from the heart and be honest, and this festival has given free rein to those feelings, to that verse that is not capable of describing what the Palestinian people are experiencing today.
We feel deeply moved by how the poets of the world see in Cuba a beacon of light, that light that illuminates the path of what Fidel said so many times:
We must defend the Cuban Revolution, because it in itself is justice, humanity, solidarity and the peace that we need, it is also the path to a better world that is so needed, he meant.
In his opinion, the Palestinian cause tears us apart and summons us every day, “that is why we are here and will be, as we Cubans have always been.”
The event was conducive to the signing of four agreements that will enhance the exchange of experiences between poets from Cuba and countries such as Hungary, Romania, Honduras, Costa Rica, and Serbia.
About 300 books in Serbian and other languages were also donated to the National Library by the president of the Smederevo Poetry Festival, Miljan Guberini.
Bards from Palestine, Germany, Ecuador, Cuba, Honduras, among other nations, shared their works at the evening.
The Minister of Culture of Cuba, Alpidio Alonso, among other personalities linked to the universe of letters, attended the Meeting of Poets in Defense of Humanity.
Fountain: Latin Press / Radio Rebelde
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