FESTIVAL INTERNACIONAL DE POESIA DE COSTA RICA

Norberto Salinas, our editor, who founded and runs almost singlehandedly the Festival Internacional de Poesía de Costa Rica, tells us that some important poets like Ernesto Cardenal, Claribel Alegría and Thiago de Mello (the latter two I've never heard of) are coming to the 5th Annual Festival, which takes place this year from May 27 to June 4; each of 15 of this special guests will have a small volume of selected poems published for the occasion, and in addition 16 books will be published and launched by Editorial Lunes at the festival.

It seems that the Festival Internacional de Poesía de Costa Rica is indeed an enormous cultural initiative, and that's why it's attracting some of the biggest names in Spanish and Latin American poetry today. According to Norberto, who tells me he's already given 80% of his working time to the festival (and he's a self-described workaholic), he's organized readings to more than 40,000 rural , public school and university students as well as general public throughout the country. Talk about dedication! We have to credit people like him for helping make poetry matter, wherever they may be...

P.S. Norberto sent me the information about the festival, which is too exhaustive to summarize here more than I have done. But since the festival as yet has little Internet presence, I thought it would be of interest to post their guest list of internationally invited poets, since I'm sure it includes many names that those outside Latin American literary circles wouldn't know. I see also three poets who do not write in Spanish, including one Ron Riddel of New Zealand. I haven't bothered to change the Spanish place names:

1- El Salvador-Nicaragua: Claribel Alegría

2- Argentina: Vicente Muleiro

3- Brasil: Thiago de Mello

4- Colombia: Juan Manuel Roca

5- Cuba: Nancy Morejón

6- Chile: Raúl Zurita

7- Eslovakia: Lubica Somolayoba

8- Eslovakia: Martin Solotruk

9- España: Rodolfo Häsler

10- Guatemala: Héctor Rodas

11- México: Ernesto Lumbreras

12- México: Guadalupe Elizalde

13- Nicaragua: Ernesto Cardenal

14- Nueva Zelanda: Ron Riddell

15- Puerto Rico: Antonio Ramírez