San Francisco International Poetry Festival

San Francisco International Poetry Festival

Guest Blogger/ anthology poet: Ravi Chandra

Worlds and words collided at the Second International Poetry Festival this weekend. I attended two events - one of the two mainstage productions at the Palace of Fine Arts, and a more intimate reading at the Richmond Public Library. Hosted by the Friends of the San Francisco Public Library, the Festival ambitiously brought together leading poets from dozens of countries, largely reading in their native languages. On Friday night, the

English translations were projected on a screen behind the poets.

Lawrence Ferlinghetti opened with some poetry he'd apparently just written - he turned 90 this year! He looked and sounded great. He read on

e sarcastic poem about America in a Lady Liberty mask, and another similarly wry poem about the excesses of our materialistic lives which end with a "smiling mortician." The poets that got the biggest audience reaction were real performers - Roy "Chicky" Arad from Israel who used a portable keyboard, and Paul Flores of YouthSpeaks, who came clearly from the "Slam" tradition.

It was wonderful to hear so many languages. I loved the vowely lull of Spanish and Italian, while the Vietnamese (of poet Lam Thi My Da as read by my friend Nguyen Qui Duc) rang like bells. The Welsh poet Menna Elfyn read in Welsh, a banned language until this generation. Who knew that fake breasts financed by a life of crime

could sound so poetic in Welsh ("His fingerprints were all over them")? And where else would I hear Shona, a language of Zimbabwe? Every day, languages die; we need events like this to preserve and honor them.

However, I have to say that three hours of poetry in various languages was a bit long for me, as much as I love and enjoy poetry. An ambitious concept - but then, it's striking that a *free*, international scale event like this could only fill half of the Palace auditorium, that too with a largely older audience. Perhaps some events geared more to youth (an evening of slam/spoken word?), or with more English language poets, could bring more people in. There are a lot of ways to represent diversity.

Saturday, I went to hear Nguyen Qui Duc read his own poetry. He was also the host of the now -defunct Pacific Time on public radio, and now lives in Vietnam where he built a house in the mountains which serves as an artists' retreat , runs a bar (Tadioto), writes an occasional blog and

is an all around good guy. Afterwards, we chatted over coffee and chai with Isabelle Thuy Pelaud, who runs the Diasporic Vietnamese Artists Network. They are now at work on their own anthology. Perhaps we'll have a chance to collaborate some time? Or at least spend some times in the mountains north of Hanoi?