The spirit of the places. 1999

"In the Balkans, bridges not only connect two shores, but also men. They challenge nature and history at the same time." Says Nedim Gursel, a well-known Turkish writer exiled in France. And he adds: "But these NATO gentlemen, great strategists and specialists in surgical warfare, bomb civilian populations and destroy bridges. Perhaps they don't know that by destroying them they are suppressing any hope of dialogue between the Balkan peoples." Now that the animal - strength, race, territory - prevails in its most sophisticated version (invisible planes, smart bombs, etc.) what space remains for dialogue, speech, culture? It now seems so small that it approaches zero, that it disappears in the face of such unprecedented pain. Yet it is necessary to oppose it with all our strength, so that nationalist delusions do not find words, so that executioners do not find justifications, so that today's victims do not become tomorrow's executioners, as has unfortunately always happened. We must continue to be crazy utopians who still stubbornly believe that poetry can be a bridge, perhaps a small pontoon bridge on which a man can meet another man and recognize the mirror of pain and hope; each different from the other, with their own voice, with their own history, with their own destiny, but all belonging to the human race, all inhabitants of this one Earth, tired of blood and bombs and the destruction of men, nature and things. The feeble voice of a poet who brings to the world the spirit of a place made of its sensitive beauty and suffering and joy is destined to be suffocated, but if poetry finds a home, this voice will multiply by a hundred, by a thousand, and will go around the world again transformed into song. And this House of Poetry does not accept being just a neutral place where we only deal with literature: we openly side with the victims, the desperate, those who have no voice; but we know and conceive of a single weapon: the word, the dialogue, however difficult it may be. We will therefore continue in these evenings and in the next meetings to host our poet friends, who with their voice and their words will never stop building "bridges as beautiful as silver necklaces".

Program

15/16 May 1999 House of Poetry, Baronissi Reading Martha L. Canfield (Uruguay /Italy) Giancarlo Cavallo (Italy) Sinan Gudzevic (Serbia/Croatia) Gezim Hajdari (Albania) Miroslav Kosuta (Slovenia) Rino Mele (Italy) Eloy José Santos (Spain) Ante Zemljar (Croatia) Poems by: Mario Benedetti, Judi Benson, Agneta Falk, Jack Hischman, Ali Podrimja, Izet Sarajlic, Ken Smith. Musicians: Maurizio Carbone, Gaspare di Lieto.

Information

PROVINCE OF SALERNO MUNICIPALITY OF BARONISSI