International Day of Poetry (Satis Shroff)

International Day of Poetry, 21 March 2018

On March 21 P. Neruda Association is going to celebrate the international day for poetry at UBIK the tea-room, Taranto. The Virtual guests will be: 
Satis Shroff, from Germany
Amy Barry, from Ireland 
Leyla Işık, from Turkey
Terrane Turan Rehimli, from Azerbaijan
Madan Gandhi, from India

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On the occasion of the International Day of Poetry I would like to congratulate the following  artisti alla Festa Della Poesia at the library Ubik in Taranto:

Lorenzo Sermon (singer)
Adriano Calzolare
Roberta Passanto
Miriam Uniano
Rosanna Morigan Papalia
Moderation by Ariel Signorelli

I would also like to congratulate the special guests:

The Consul Pinar Ugursaal Bolognini
The famous guitarist Maestro Pino Forresu

Would the world have seen and read Tagore’s Gitanjali or Shakuntala if it hadn’t been translated into English? The Nobel Prize for Literature for a Bengali poet has inspired generations of Bengalis and others in the Indian subcontinent, as have the Man Booker Prizes for Rushdie, Kiran Desai and Pulitzer Prize and PEN/Hemingway Award for Jhumpa Lahiri.

Why are Nigerian Chinua Achebe’s books well known in the world than the ones of those of African writers writing in their own mother tongues? If Ngugi wa Thiong’o hadn’t moved to the Britain and later to the USA, why, he wouldn’t have become a professor for comparative literature and performance studies at New York University in 1992.

 Global literature is here to stay as a resurrection from the ashes of bitter post-colonial experiences and thanks to the proliferation of social media and e-books.

In most of the narratives of the global writers and poets the theme of identity takes a central position. Who am I? What am I doing here in this foreign world that I have embraced? Where do I belong? Questions about the hybridity, acculturation and integration, mixed cultures and multiple-identities arise, as men and women of different ethnic backgrounds marry, bring forth progeny. The global authors write a literature of being in-between and growing within foreign cultures that they have accepted. They write about the changes and exchanges between two cultures and the question of: ‘Where do I belong?’ is raised. Is it a world in transition?


Writers who have written with a heart for the downtrodden in the former colonies are undoubtedly: V S Naipaul, Salman Rushdie, Joseph Conrad, Alexander Hemon, Hanif Kureishi, JM Coetzee and Michael Ondatje.

It is amazing how many poets and poetesses there are in the different websites around the world. This is a commendable and formidable resource and must be channelled to produce not only festivals but also works of literature for posterity.

In this context I'd like to mention Epitacio Tongohan of Pentasi B World Friendship Poetry, Dimitris P. Kraniotis from Larissa with his World Poets Society,  Leyla Isek from Kibatek,Turkey, Maria Miraglia and Saverio Sinopoli from the Pablo Neruda  Cultural Association from Italy and India's Manthena Damodara Chary's endeavours to bring out certificates and anthologies of the best poems on his websites. Also worthy of mention are the Singaporean Writers under Hj Harisharis Hj Hamzah with Malay and Singaporean Poetry at an international event on 20-21 April 2018. It shows that we are global poet and poetesses out to bring peace, tolerance, and togetherness in a world of diversity with our verses.

Dankeschön, thank you, merci, grazie, gracias, dhanyavad.

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