I’m sitting at my desk watching a YouTube livestream. It appears as if the main event has already begun, someone’s speaking at the podium, but their voice is nearly inaudible, and covering the center of the screen is a massive logo reading The 9th Americas Poetry Festival of New York 2022. Two men sit down in front of the camera, and begin whispering to each other. It completely drowns out the already quiet speaker on the podium. The microphone is peaking and the sound is barely audible. The audience claps and it sounds like popping an ice tray, finally the man on the podium sits down by the camera, gives it a look of confusion, and the logo goes away.
This was my introduction to the 9th Americas Poetry Festival of New York 2022. The title though is a bit misleading though because the poetry isn’t really just concerned with any made in just the United States of America, or North America, or all of the Americas, the poetry in this festival is sourced globally, and you can tell. If any literary event is a melting pot, this is it. This was just the first day, it was two hours long and there were more than twenty poets all from different countries and walks of life. The sheer variety of accents, appearances, languages, cultures, and styles was incredible. It’s in a way perfect that it is held in New York, because it embodies what makes this city so great, the diversity.
One of the aspects that made this event so interesting was hearing how rhyme schemes and poetic styles are so different across different languages. I was making liberal use of YouTube’s auto-translate feature throughout the presentation and it’s so cool that concepts that could never be rhymed about in English can shine in other languages where the words obviously sound different and rhyme in different ways. It made me realize that poetry as an art form is completely unique to each language, and the poem cannot be translated without something being lost. Even more impressively with this in mind, some of the poets involved would present their material first in a different language, and then again in english! The amount of effort and creative energy this would have taken to pull off is beyond me.
Despite all of their different backgrounds it felt like a very tight knit community in that room. The main announcer for the event, Carlos Aguasco, would preface the names of many of the poets with phrases like “my friend” or “someone who I’ve known for a long time”. The whole event took place in The Consulate General and Promotion Center of the Argentine Republic which is mouthful to be sure. I didn’t see much of the inside from the stream, the camera wasn’t a great angle for it, but it certainly looked gorgeous. Many of the poems were about childhood experiences or struggles faced in life. My favorite poem was the one from Hector Cononge of Argentina, Bolivia, and the USA. The poem begins with someone asking where Hector was from, and he switches between languages as he talks about his home and the conversation he is currently having with the other person in the poem. The poem itself is about how speaking in his native language gets him judgment and scorn, and it is a powerful piece making use of the multilingual format.
This event could only exist in the age we currently live in, these poets contacted each other across long distances using technology and came together to present their stories. The streaming of the event itself was a bit clunky though, and I think a deeper investment into advertising and digital production quality would do wonders for the popularity of the show. The format of the event was very simple, Carlos simply called up whichever poet was next and the poet read, but it was a great way to efficiently showcase all the different poetry. The whole event was broadcast on YouTube. I don’t even know if that would’ve happened without the pandemic to kickstart this kind of digital option for many events. The act of all these people coming together and showcasing their art for the world to see even without publishing certainly reflects some of the themes seen in this class. The world of participatory literature allows for people who previously did not have a platform for their work to express their ideas to a wide audience.