Nicaragua poetry festival dedicated to Ernesto Cardenal

Granada’s 9th annual International Poetry Festival, held Feb. 17-24, promises to be bigger and better than years past

Revolutionary Poet/Priest Ernesto Cardenal (photo/ Tim Rogers)
By Tim Rogers / Nicaragua Dispatch
January 30, 2013 They say that all Nicaraguans are poets or hijuepoetas. That dictum, which works better in Spanish than Spanglish, is never truer than in the month February, when Granada hosts its international poetry festival and even the most prosaic Nicaraguans start to speak in rhyme and iambic pentameter.
This year’s International Poetry Festival, now in its ninth year, will be dedicated to Nicaragua’s iconic revolutionary poet and priest Ernesto Cardenal, the country’s most revered and internationally celebrated living poet.
 The poetry festival, an annual cultural event that has grown rapidly in scope and prestige over the past decade, is now considered one of the top events of its kind in the world, rivaled only by the International Poetry Festival of Medellín, Colombia.
“In just eight years, the International Poetry Festival in Granada has become an obligatory event for poets; the festival is now firmly established on the cultural calendar of events in the Americas and is second only to the poetry festival in Medellín, which has been going on for more than 20 years,” says event organizer Fernando López.
This year’s festival in homage to one of Granada’s most famous native sons, who last week turned 88, is expected to be an even greater celebration than years past, as Cardenal’s friends and admirers from around the world come to honor an extraordinary life of achievement. Cardenal, the 2012 recipient of the Queen Sofia Prize for Ibero-American Poetry and a former nominee for the Nobel Prize in Literature, is author of many famous poems, novels and works of poetry, including “Prayer for Marilyn Monroe,” “Epigrams”, and “Cosmic Canticle,” among others.
 The former minister of culture during the Sandinistas’ revolutionary days in the 1980s, and now a leading critic of President Daniel Ortega, Cardenal is also an extremely accomplished sculptor and the founder of the primitivist art community in the Solentiname archipelago in Lake Cocibolca.
The revolutionary poet will be doing a poetry reading on Friday, at 4 p.m. at the San Francisco Convent.

Big international draw

The 2013 International Poetry Festival will draw a total of 123 poets—83 international poets from 58 countries and 40 Nicaraguan poets—who have been invited to participate in this year’s event, making it one of the biggest festivals yet. Among the long roster of internationally renowned poets participating in this year’s festival is U.S. feminist poet, author and social activist Margaret Randall, whose early involvement in the Sandinista Revolution prompted the U.S. government to revoke her citizenship in 1984. After a lengthy court battle, Randall’s citizenship was reinstated in 1989. The following year she was awarded the Lillian Hellman and Dashiell Hammett grant for writers victimized by political repression.
Long-time Nicaphiles will recognize Randall’s name from her influential book on the Nicaraguan Revolution, titled “Sandino’s Daughters.”
This year’s poetry festive will also have a special celebrity guest: Bianca Jagger, the Nicaraguan born social and human rights advocate and former wife of Rolling Stones frontman Mick Jagger. Ms. Jagger, who resides in London, is founder of Bianca Jagger Human Rights Foundation and currently acts as the European Council’s Goodwill Ambassador, as well as sitting on the Executive Director’s Leadership Council of Amnesty International.
Organizers of the International Poetry Festival hope Bianca Jagger’s participation in the event will provide enough star power to generate some mainstream international attention for the poetry festival.
“Her presence will help make this festival more visible and that will open doors for us to find more funding for the festival in the years to come,” López told The Nicaragua Dispatch.
Event organizers will also seek to elevate the festival’s international status by nominating it for the 2013 Prince of Asturias Award, which is given each year in recognition of those who make significant contributions to peace and culture. The Granada poetry festival was nominated for the award last year and was given serious consideration as a shortlist finalist.

Going global after a decade

For the past nine years, Granada’s International Poetry Festival has been dedicated to a famous Nicaraguan poet, honoring the big names from Nicaragua’s “Vanguard Movement” (José Coronel Urtecho, Pablo Antonio Cuadra, Joaquín Pasos) and the “post-modern” movement (Azarías H. Pallais, Alfonso Cortés, and Salomón de la Selva ). Two years ago, the festival was dedicated to Claribel Alegria, who had the distinction of being the first female poet and the first living poet to be honored. The festivals of 2012 and 2013 were dedicated to honoring Nicaragua’s post-vanguard movement, known as “The Three Ernestos” for poets Ernesto Mejía Sánchez , Carlos Ernesto Martínez Rivas and Ernesto Cardenal.
Next year, the 10th installment of Granada’s International Poetry Festival will be dedicated to Nicaraguan National Hero Rubén Darío, known as the “The prince of Castilian letters” and “Father of Modernism.”
But after that, the festival is going to expand its accolades and start honoring international poets to reflect the globalization of the event.
“After we dedicate year 10 to Darío, we will start to dedicate subsequent festivals to other poets from Central America, and then expand from there,” López says. “This festival has already transcended the borders of Nicaragua.”

Those of you who remember me raving about this event a year ago are in for a re-run. I love this romantic Nicaraguan soul.  The streets are filling up. The chairs and book stalls are going up. The loudspeakers are being stacked up. I am ready for some poetry.  Send me your favorite poem.  I'd love to read it.