I attended the 9th Americas Poetry Festival of New York 2022. I listened to the Multilingual Poetry reading on Thursday, October 13 from 6-9pm. I watched this as a live stream on YouTube. This event is a festival organized by the City College of New York Division of Interdisciplinary Arts & Sciences with the Walt Whitman Birthplace Association; and Instituto Cervantes New York. Professors and writers Carlos Aguasaco, Yrene Santos, and Carlos Velásquez Torres put together this annual event. This event had local poets share one or two of their works in one to three languages. Many of these poets were from different countries all over the world. The Multilingual Poetry reading was a wonderful sharing of culture and poetry with other students and poetry enthusiasts.
The first poet was from Peru and read his poem first in Spanish. It was so beautiful and flowed like a song. I loved it even though I did not understand what he was saying. He then proceeded to read his poem translated into English. Even though I then understood the poem, I was surprised to realize I still preferred the poem in its original language. It was so beautiful to listen to this piece and the others that followed with various transitions. Afterward, this event made me more interested in practicing my French to be able to read French poetry in its original language.
This was an interactive literary event because of the many poets who read their works and audience members choosing to applaud and react. This demonstrates how literature should be shared and spoken, and I enjoyed listening to these works being read by their authors. This event was a platform for poets who are multilingual and want to share their languages. The audience still appreciated the poems in their different translations, even if they didn’t understand them. I thought that was so beautiful and shows our human nature to want to share our story with others.
This was an alternate form of sharing poetry, and it had a much more personal feeling because the author’s cultural identity was included in their presentation. I think this is such an important event for people to hear stories from many different cultures in their own language, other languages, as well as English. I am not exposed to works like these and often authors like these do not get their works appreciated in their mother tongue. Poets should be able to share their works in a positive environment with other people who are open-minded to other people’s stories and backgrounds.
This literary community surrounding this event is multicultural and allows for the space for others to share their language and identities. This fosters creativity and the spread of acceptance and understanding of other cultures. I felt honored to be able to hear about these poets’ nationalities and the multiple languages they know. There should be more events like this all over America to strengthen communities through the sharing of literature. Events like this that are platforms for underrepresented stories are important for reminding how America is a country rich with many cultures, which should be appreciated, not ignored.
Overall, this event was conducted by a university that was a space for people to share their cultures, languages, and works with a positive literary community. Sharing poetry with a live audience created an atmosphere of participation and provided authors with live feedback. This was also an alternative presentation of literature through the format of sharing one to three poems in multiple different language translations. The performance aspect of this event was wonderful and I would love to attend this event next year as well. This positive community for sharing culture and poetry allows for appreciation of other cultures and perspectives. Events like this are so important in combating ignorance and creating more opportunities for authors to share their identities along with their work.