SUE WOOTTON
Recently I was honored to be invited to read at the International Festival of Poetry in Granada, Nicaragua. I was the third New Zealander to attend this festival, following in the footsteps of Michael Harlow in 2008 and David Howard in 2009.
Granada is a small 16th century Spanish colonial city situated on Lake Nicaragua, about an hour’s drive from Managua, the country’s capital. Here Nicaragua, one of the poorest countries in the Americas, stages an annual international festival of poetry. This year Granada welcomed 120 poets from 56 countries: from all over the Americas, from Europe, Scandinavia and Iceland, Africa, the Middle East, the Philippines, Taiwan, Japan, India, Australia, and New Zealand.
Nicaraguans love poetry. You know it the moment you exit customs and walk into an airport terminus whose central display features the sculpted bronze heads of half a dozen women poets, flanked by towering portraits of two of the country’s most beloved bards. Here is a dirt-poor nation whose school children can – and do – recite poetry at the drop of a hat, where every park and plaza displays a statue or a sculpture devoted to a poet and his or her work. The theme of this year’s festival was ‘La Poesia es el Angel de la Imagination’ – ‘Poetry is the Angel of the Imagination’. In a part of the world where repression of free speech is a reality, the word ‘imagination’ is not used lightly. Underlying political and social realities give an extra charge to Poetry. There’s an understanding that a poem is a force – something like the lava running just under the surface of this volcanic country. In welcoming remarks the festival organisers expressed their commitment to literary freedom, explicitly undertaking not to censor any poet’s readings. The subtext was also clear, a reminder that clumsily-executed poetry could cause real problems to the festival and to its organisers personally.
But (as the cry went up many times during the ensuing week) viva la poesia! Viva! Viva! The Angel of the Imagination held her wings wide open over Granada, and poetry was everywhere. Readings, both formal and informal, were held in Granada’s plazas, parks and churches. There were angry political poets (notably from the USA), and there were tender lyrical poets, passionate Latin poets, cerebral European poets, dramatic performance poets, singing poets, dancing poets, ululating poets. We read in many languages: Spanish, French, Turkish, Dutch, Icelandic, Norwegian, Hungarian, Japanese, English, Kanada (an Indian language), Hebrew, Arabic – to name a few. Before each performance we worked on Spanish-language translations with Nicaraguan university drama students, under the tutelage of their lecturer. At the readings, I would read my poem in English, and my translator would then provide the Spanish version. A highlight of the Granada festival is its street carnival (http://www.festivalpoesianicaragua.com/2010/03/canal-audiovisual-del-festival-2/), a colorful, noisy spectacle which wends its way from a central church to the lakefront. We poets walked (or salsa-ed) behind the flower-bedecked mobile podium, as music played, masked characters danced, and locals thronged the streets and verandahs to cheer us on. Even before we started, we were mobbed by local school children requesting the autographs of the “poetas del mondo” (poets of the world). Viva la poesia, shouted Nicaraguan poet Gloria Gabuardi, giving the signal for the start of the carnival. Viva, Viva, roared the crowd, and we were off. At each street corner the parade halted for a couple of poets to climb the podium and read a poem to the crowd. At the lakefront a coffin was lifted from a horse-drawn hearse, and, surrounded by skeletons and ghouls, ceremoniously “buried” – a “burial of the treason of dreams” – a ritual which marked the rebirth of new, uncorrupted ideas.
One day of the programme was devoted to readings outside of Granada, in villages, towns, universities, schools, in prisons and at the National Police Academy. In Diriomo, the village I visited, we received a mayoral reception, were shown round the town’s tiny sweet-making business, and read to a large crowd of schoolchildren and adults in the town plaza.
Audiences were attentive and enthusiastic. Listeners, poets and non-poets alike, visibly and audibly reacted to the poetry. They jiggled, swayed, clapped, whistled, sighed, laughed, wept. This responsiveness was wonderful, creating an air of celebration, commitment and mutuality. On the final evening, a crowd of 2-3000 people gathered in Granada’s main plaza to listen to our work.
What’s the value for a poet in attending a festival like this? Certainly there’s no money in it – this is not one of the festivals that attracts target funding from the NZ Book Council or Creative New Zealand. Consequently, accepting an invitation to read is financially costly, though the festival pays accommodation, food and internal travel for the duration of your stay in Nicaragua. However, the benefits are huge, both personally and for NZ poetry. The networking opportunities are there for the taking. As a direct result of contacts made in Nicaragua, my work is being translated into other languages for publication overseas. The Spanish language opportunities alone are mind-boggling. I encountered genuine interest in what is happening in contemporary NZ poetry, coupled with a desire on the part of international poets to be read here (an outcome I’m keen to promote). The exchange of information and ideas stretched us all. My outlook has shifted: yes I’m a New Zealand poet, but I’m also a Poeta del Mundo. As are we all. Viva la poesia!