Poetry Festival in Venezuela

Today I want to talk to you about something very important and it is about poetry, this is because the seventeenth world poetry festival is taking place in Venezuela and it starts from today, it has arrived to delight us with a week that is going to be full culture, art and poetry.

This is one of the most important events in the world of letters and we are going to bring together poets, writers and artists from all over the world. During all these 7 days, Venezuela is going to become the epicenter of poetry, this art that allows us to contact our emotions and our deepest feelings, that allows us to express and denounce everything that keeps us with a purpose in life.

I want to let you know that poetry is life itself, but it is defined as a literary genre whose main characteristic is to use a more elaborate, complete and careful language than prose, which has a rhythmic, musical, pleasant structure, very Sensual, it uses resources such as meter, rhyme, alliteration, repetition and rhetorical figure in order to create an aesthetic and emotional effect on those who enjoy it.

Poetry can be about anything, it can be about anger, nostalgia, love, nature, history, politics, sex, eroticism, it can be about anything, while prose is a genre. which is used to write about more common things.

It is normal to see prose in newspapers, in novels, in essays, and prose does not have a rhythmic structure or use resources such as meter or rhyme.

We have to keep in mind that poetry is very important because it allows us to express feelings in a deeper and more creative way than prose. This is a resource that allows us and helps us to better understand reality and invites us to reflect on it, on our day to day.

It can also be a resource that invites us to fight against injustice, which has been used in many social and political movements. We can see, for example, how Ali Primera used his poetry in his songs to talk about Venezuela and to explain all the social differences that the people had and all the struggles that were being waged.

Poetry is beautiful because, imagine how great it is to be able to make us reflect on love, on human existence, on life, on death, on nature, on everyday life, on all things.

It invites us to reflect on human transcendence, this is very important for all of us and all the poets, all the bards from Latin America, Europe, Africa, Asia will attend this festival, who will pay homage to the Venezuelan Pedro Ruiz, a great poet who has been a bearer of his particular vision of the world.

This festival is going to have the motto "With the river behind us", which is a verse from one of Pedro Ruiz's poems. This is going to be like the slogan or the premise of this festival these days. This festival will take place in different places such as libraries, theaters, southern bookstores, universities, high schools and communities throughout Venezuela.

Although its main venue for those who want to participate will be the Simón Bolívar theater in Caracas, where its opening session is scheduled for today, July 17, at 6 in the afternoon. It will have a fairly extensive cultural program that includes declamations and poetry recitals, workshops, several books will be presented, there will be conferences.

This invites us to participate and get to know each of these poets much more and interact with them, to fill ourselves with poetry, which is something so important in our lives.

It is the 17th edition of this event that gives life to the world's imagination. On this occasion, it brings together very important international poets such as Fernando Rendón from Colombia, Gerard Loose from Scotland, Francis Combes from France, Agneta Falk from Sweden, Bárbara Pogacnik from Slovenia, Mónica Laneri from Paraguay, Rosa Sánchez from Guatemala, Sándor Halmossi from Hungary. We have Alex Pausides from Cuba, Anan Awwad from Palestine and many others that I don't know, of whom I don't have a list at the moment, but who will also be participating in this important event.

There are more than 130 poets and it will take place from July 17 to 23.

Due to its importance, my cultural contribution to you is to inform you about this, and I also want you to know a little so that you can learn to differentiate the types of poetry that exist, let's say the most important.

We have, for example, lyric poetry that is characterized because it expresses the poet's personal feelings and emotions, whether he wants to reflect or make us feel love, joy or sadness. We have an example of a lyrical poem here below, which is Becker with his poem "The dark swallows will return", of which he left a small fragment.

"The dark swallows will return on your balcony their nests to hang, and again with the wing to its crystals playing they will call

But those that the flight restrained your beauty and my joy when contemplating; those who learned our names, those... won't come back!"

We also have epic poetry, which is what tells the story of a hero or a heroic deed and, obviously, here I cannot fail to mention Homer's "The Iliad", which is a poem that I enjoy very much and is tremendously beautiful, and I quote a snippet here too.

"Sing, oh goddess, the anger of Pelida Achilles; dire anger that caused infinite evils to the Achaeans and hurled into Hades many brave souls of heroes, whom he made prey to dogs and fowl grazing -the will of Zeus was fulfilled-; since they separated arguing Atreus, king of men, and divine Achilles."

We have narrative poetry, which is what tells us a story as if it were a narrative in verse. It is also one of my favorites and is one of the prettiest. An example is "La Canción del Pirata" by José de Espronceda, of which he also left you a fragment.

"With ten cannonry per band, Wind in their sails, does not cut the sea, but flies a brigantine sailing ship; pirate vessel they call, for his bravery, the Feared, in every known sea from one end to the other.

The moon in the sea shimmers, the wind moans on the canvas and rises in soft movement waves of silver and blue; and see the pirate captain, singing joyfully in the stern, Asia on one side, Europe on the other, and there in front of him Istanbul."

And, of course, dramatic poetry could not be missing, which is the one used in the theater and the one that tells us or narrates an event or a story through the dialogue between the characters. An example of this type of poetry is "La Casa de Bernarda Alba" by Federico García Lorca, of which he left you a brief fragment.

"Silence! I want silence! In the house of Bernarda Alba sighs are heard more than words.

Silence...

You know what I'm saying: five and no more. To the men in the face, to the women in the back.

Because in my house I rule! And the two of them go out to that corral.

Silence! Silence I have said! Silence!

Damn them! How I hate men! I don't want them to talk about it again.

God has made men so that they kill each other.

Bernarda Alba must not leave let a man sit at her table!

Silence! Silence I have said! Silence!

It's the same! It's the same! The Librada's daughter! She has been the same thief who has taken my husband's life!"

For me, poetry helps us better understand the world around us, makes us empty our feelings and show them to all people. It is a way in which we can connect with our emotions and our feelings, and it is important that we do so because in this way we show the world how we feel and can celebrate our ability to make art and evolve into better things.

Show the world the criticism we have in different aspects of life and the way we see and how we interpret our entire world, everything we think about, everything we feel. This is something that helps develop our skills and our empathy, our sensitivity towards all things and towards life itself.

I hope you have the opportunity to attend this festival, and if you are in another part of the world and cannot do it, I invite you to enjoy poetry even if it is five minutes a day in your life, because this will help you grow. as a human being and to be a better person.

If you've made it this far, thanks for reading, and I hope you can share what you think about poetry and what your favorite style is in the comments.

Leave me your vote and share this publication with me and your loved ones so that they find out about this beautiful initiative that is taking place here in Venezuela.

If you want to have more information about this, I share a video where the entire event is discussed in more detail.

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Until the next opportunity.

Information sources: Prensa Latina Albaciudad.org Youtube.com