A country of dreamers is woven between verses

The brilliant Colombian writer Jaime Jaramillo Escobar stated, in his Quick and Easy Method to Be a Poet, that the good bard is known for his bad verses. That’s where the dilemma begins: then anyone will do, because almost all of us scribble nonsense without any shame and read them publicly hoping for applause, recognition and publication. That may be so, although it also takes a lot of guataca and “competence” to prove it.

The Bolivarian Revolution has bet on this complex diversity, and for almost two decades it has stimulated all mechanisms of training and participation, including that massive call to publish writers from all over the country who treasured an original, so they were overwhelmed the offices of The Dog and the Frog when we had not yet been hit so hard by the coercive measures and the economic blockade.
Poets, poets, poetesses, poetesses. Bards abound, and even more so when a festival is announced. Elevated, transparent, honest and militant poets.

Intoxicated by the expectation that the announcement of the 18th World Poetry Festival in Venezuela gives us, we are left with the idea that the poetic act finds officiants for better (and sometimes for worse), and there is the myth of the poet as an exegete of an attitude , a job and a fashion.

There are poets on false summits and street poets, those who reap fame and live for it, and those who wander without resources making their daily lives a Homeric cause.

Our poets, in general, are beautiful creatures immersed in the dream of a country that transcends adversity through the word and, therefore, the new generations represented at the Juan Calzadilla National Poetry School, one of the great protagonists of this edition, are the most beautiful tribute to hope.

The poet Benjamín Martínez says: “When in various latitudes of the world those who believe they are masters continue to insist on practices of genocide, Venezuela continues to offer the word as an encounter, because it knows that only from there can we save the humanity that we are.”

The Festival’s antics

• This edition will continue for one week, from Monday, July 8 to Saturday, July 13 at the Bolívar Theater and alternate spaces.
• More than 200 poets from all over the country will join the meeting in different settings.
• 20 states of the country will join the festival in the regions, through libraries, houses of culture, squares, etc.
• More than 22 international poets will be present at the meeting, coming from the rest of America, Europe, Asia and Africa.
• Leonardo Gustavo Ruiz (1959), Barin poet, with more than ten books of poetry and essays published, is the honoree on this occasion.