Medellin is the city where poets are rock stars

By: aromaproductions on 3:32 PM

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Medellin is the city where poets are rock stars; the city where the masses hunger for the words of poets, the city where people sit in the rain and listen to poets; the city where fans line up to get autographs and take photos with poet-stars. The poetry festival has become a tradition and is part of the social and cultural fabric of sprawling Medellin.

I did my last reading on Friday in Auditorio Edificio Torre De La Memoria in Municipio Sabaneta about 40 minutes outside Medellin. We got caught in a horrific traffic jam and arrived 30 minutes late. Read with poets Umberto Senegal (Colombia), Homero Carvalho (Bolivia) and Esteban Moore (Argentina). It is Sunday, 18, July and I missed the final day of the festival which will feature readings by all poets and a grand party afterward. I had to get back to reality since I don't write for a living. Many poets attending the festival get paid to do what they enjoy--write and teach writing, take on projects that might change the world in some small way,( i.e. preserve dying languages, collect the war stories of woman), and perennially attend poetry festivals around the world. It is a lifestyle some of us only dreams about. Not all of us can live on poetry. Work starts on Monday at 9:00 a.m.

I am going to miss the bustling city of Medellin. Rainbow-colored busses that make you think of carnival, herds of motorcyclists, streams of yellow taxis and private cars compete in that city where the smell of gasoline in predominant.  One must reach outside the city to get fresh air. It is a city that is exploding with development, a city filled with contrasts. There are looming skyscrapers as well as scrappy narrow building whose doors are protected with iron bars and in which the ordinary people run their business. There are huge shopping malls on the city’s outskirts along with inspiring museums, wonderful architectures and universities.  The mountainsides are painted brown with clay/brick buildings large and small, fantastically designed or hurriedly erected structures build by refugees of war.

It is a city where spring is perennial and that means rain and rain coats, and streets filled with vendors selling fresh fruit and avocados where ever you turn. I am going to miss the fresh fruit and vegetables and fresh juice that we were served every day—soursap juice being my favorite. I hope to shed the few pounds I think I gained.

I am going to miss Fernando Rendon and his army of organizers and helpers, some, who happen to be university students artists and actors, who worked tirelessly as readers, translators, guides, m.c.’s and shepherds of poets who needed to know where to, when to go and how to get venues. They also gave their free time to take us on cultural tours.  This machine is so well organized, it would give the Swiss a grand competition for orderliness and precision.

Unforgettable are the meals shared, as poets got to know each other informally, the friendships formed by the famous and little known, from all over the world, and the doors that might have been opened through contacts made and networks formed. We learned to reinforce the faith we had in ourselves and our purpose in this world as the mouthpiece of the masses and the interpreters of our own experiences and that of the silent majority.

Hope I will be back to try the “changua” soup made of potato, egg and bread, the wonderful tamale cooked in banana leaf cups and munch on “fat ass” ants and remember that “embarazada” doesn’t mean to be embarrassed but to be pregnant. And I hope that I can remember that in some parts of the country, “muy caliente” can mean I am upset or sexy hot. I must see the beautiful smiles of the Colombian people and become the object of their kind spirit once again.