The new issue of the Poetry Planetariat comes out at the time when the poet-delegates from around the world are meeting in Medellin on 13-15 July and in Caracas on 17-19 July 2023 for the First World Congress of the World Poetry Movement (WPM). We take this opportunity to welcome all the poet delegates from across the continents. 

After its inception in July 2011, in the last twelve years, WPM has invested its effort to galvanize individual poets, poetry festivals, and poetry organizations in all parts of the continents and consolidate them for a common cause of justice, dignity, and human rights through poetic actions. WPM has expanded to all the continents and most countries and territories in those continents with an increasing capacity to intervene in the humanitarian cause through poetry. And we hope that the first Congress will provide a strategic direction for our future works with a clearly charted vision, mission, values, and action plan. 

Migration from Death to Life

The theme of this Congress is “Migration from Death to Life.” It corroborates with our mission to work for world peace through creative dialogue and the reconstruction of the human spirit using the tool of poetry. We come together for the love of poetry and love of people. So, one of our aims is to foster the creativity and artistic expression of poets. But as poets, we believe we have responsibilities towards our societies and people. So, we need the unity of the world's poets and artists and the progressive and humanist forces. We believe "the loving and ardent struggle of the peoples will make possible the transformation of this adverse history, from the process of disintegration that we are living, towards the change of life, configuring a higher unity of humanity. Editor of this issue is Dr. Keshab Sigdel, Nepal, and it is published by World Poetry Movement, with a cover art by Erina Tamrakar.

Poetry Planetariat cover by artist Erina Tamrakar

 The issue starts with WPM WORLD CONGRESS MANIFESTO, “Migration from Death to Life” announced by WPM Coordinating Committee:   “The last million years of evolution and more than 7,000 years of civilization on Earth have not been enough for human beings to understand the self-destructive nature of war and plunder and the fatal consequences of material and spiritual misery. Many rulers have opposed building agreements necessary for our species and all living forms, so we can survive the threat posed by a deadly rift. The probability of extinction of all life is not unknown to anyone. 

Despite the efforts made in many places, the visible deterioration of nature progresses, and the desert slowly invades places populated by fresh and bright vegetation. Animal species are decreasing in number, and many have disappeared. The deterioration of human life is also evident. Extreme poverty figures are growing, as are the rates of insufficient health coverage, education, and housing services. Budgets for culture are falling in many countries. The global situation has become more serious due to the effects of the recent pandemic in a world already inhabited by eight billion people. Faced with this accumulation of problems originating from capitalism, there is no solution in sight. But we must try everything. 

This is a time when the diversity of peoples and ethnicities, beliefs, convictions, and genders is recognized. When the extreme difference between humans becomes more visible, it is necessary for humanity to say enough in its obsessive race toward death. The world is dying. The Earth is reacting to the chaos and throws a constant warning to this species that is facing the mirror of its own end. There is no god that can save us from ourselves. We cannot continue solving differences by tearing the enemy to pieces. 

It is time to return to the time of unity in essential similarities. We must return to profound thought and action in search of peace and reconciliation so that the survival of life becomes possible on the planet.  And for this, it will be necessary to appeal to the most forgotten resource: poetry, language, and the renewing action of love, which is the restart, the return to the original Earth, the return to the root and the beginning of all living things, discarding the vain illusion of annihilation. 

The World Poetry Movement -WPM- calls for its first Congress to be held in Medellin and Caracas in July 2023. We are calling all the poets of the world to create committees of the Movement in each country, in each city, in each municipality, in each village, and to bring together artists, thinkers, fighters for the defense of the Earth and life, human rights defenders, pacifists, to unite and fight together, with love and responsibility until recovering life, to call the energies of existence to surround and embrace the recovery of the human spirit, of its thirst for living; to unity in the solidarity of social justice fulfilled in the twinning of nations and peoples, of men and women, all made of differences but also of similarities and deep identities.   The World Poetry Movement will develop preparatory congresses in Africa in January, in Asia in February, in March in Europe, and in April in Latin America. These congresses will be held virtually and will be organized by the coordinating committees on the various continents.   The unity of the poets and artists of the world, of the progressive and humanist anti-capitalist forces, the immense energies of the planetariat, and the loving and ardent struggle of the peoples will make possible the transformation of this adverse history, from the process of disintegration that we are living, towards the change of life, configuring a higher unity of humanity to undo the steps from death again, towards radiant and liberated life. 

Ashraf Aboul-Yazid (Egypt), Dalila Hiaoui (Morocco), Hani Nadeem (Syria) and Ana María Oviedo (Venezuala) - Clockwise from top left." class="inner_img" src="https://mebusiness.ae/uploads/files/mebusiness.ae_1688975436_1.jpeg" />

Fernando Rendon (Colombia), Rati Saxena (India), Keshab Sigdel (Nepal), Jack Hirschman, Ashraf Aboul-Yazid (Egypt), Dalila Hiaoui (Morocco), Hani Nadeem (Syria) and Ana María Oviedo (Venezuala) - Clockwise from top left.

Will humanity learn from the tragedy?

Columbian poet Fernando Rendon, who was born in Medellin, Colombia, in 1951, wrote a presentation of the First Congress of the World Poetry Movement. Rendon is the General Coordinator of the World Poetry Movement and director of the International Poetry Festival of Medellin, which received the Alternative Nobel Prize in 2006. He has received several awards, including the Arabian Bashrahill Foundation Prize (Saudi Arabia), Rafael Alberti Poetry Prize, Cuba, and Medal Homero for Literature and Art, Belgium. He wrote: “The poem “Six August” by the Japanese poet Toge Sankishi, a survivor of the Hiroshima genocide, reflects the terror experienced by the victims of the first American nuclear bomb dropped on the civilian population of a country on 6th August 1944. 

The poet reveals the destruction and death in the city while asking whether humanity will learn from the tragedy accumulated over the centuries and avoid using nuclear weapons to resolve political conflicts. 

"Can we forget that flash? 

suddenly 30,000 in the streets disappeared 

in the crushed depths of darkness 

the shrieks of 50,000 died out 

when the swirling yellow smoke thinned 

buildings split, bridges collapsed 

packed trains rested singed 

and a shoreless accumulation of rubble and embers - Hiroshima 

before long, a line of naked bodies walking in groups, crying 

with skin hanging down like rags..." 

Poetry is a powerful medium for expressing feelings and thoughts that emerge at the prospect of nuclear war. We need to reflect on the need to preserve life. The peace and security of the world, like existence, are fragile.  Today we can be at peace in our home or in a park. But a final war could break out and destroy the known world at any moment. Do human beings love life enough to defend it? Poetry comes to their aid. 

The possibility of nuclear war and its potential to wipe out life on Earth has been brought into sharp focus once again by the events in Ukraine. As we understand the horrors of radiation and fire, we cling to the hope of a final settlement between mortal enemies. Poetry is a powerful tool to raise awareness of the need to avoid total conflagration and to work for a peaceful present and future. 

But it is not only extreme and violent nuclear radiation that can end human life. There are other modalities, such as the unstoppable increase in the earth's temperature due to greenhouse gas emissions, which can alter ecosystems and make species extinct, and the process of uncontrollable growth of the desert.  The contamination of the elements by chemicals seriously affects the quality of ecosystems and reduces the ability of species to survive and reproduce.

These looming catastrophes, coupled with the likelihood of the emergence of new direct and deadly pandemics, the malevolent use of biotechnology, or a planet-shattering response to continued human aggression, may bring an end to life on Earth.  The unity of poets is necessary to achieve world peace and defend life. Poetry has the power to connect people by creating empathy and understanding between different peoples, cultures, and languages.  Through thousands of pedagogical processes, poetry influences human beings to learn a new language and a new relationship with the environment and each other. Poets use language to break down barriers and promote unity in the world to give new meaning to the value of existence. 

Poetry also fights for the realization of social justice and human rights. Poets express their outrage at violence and oppression and call on the world to stand up to the powers that be. 

Finally, poetry is a manifest and powerful form of connection to the beauty and vitality of the natural world. Poets contribute through their organizational forms and poetic actions to protect the environment and defend life in all its forms. 

The alliance between poets is essential to achieve a peaceful, just, and sustainable world. When poets work together in harmony, they can create a vigorous and transformative movement that will have a lasting impact on the world and awaken peoples' mutual and ultimate solidarity. 

It is for these reasons that for twelve years’ poets from many countries have scaled a process to found and develop the World Poetry Movement, a global community of poets that will hold its first Congress in Medellin and Caracas between 13 and 18 July 2023, attended by delegates from all continents, where it will approve its Strategic Plan 2023-2028.se of the planet to the constant aggression of human beings, may bring an end to life on Earth.” 

A tribute to Jack Hirschman 

 The issue has a tribute to Jack Hirschman (1933–2021), the late USA poet with three poems by his him, wife Agneta Falk (Sweden/USA), and Sue Zhu (China) followed by a study by Luis Flipe Sarmento (Portugal). A mega collection of poems are presented by Alex Pausides (Cuba), Ataol Behramoglu (Türkiye), Ayo Ayoola-Amale (Ghana/Nigeria) , Dalila Hiaoui (Morocco), Francis Combes (France), Freddy Ñáñez (Venezuela), Hanan Awwad (Palestine), Hani Nadeem (Syria) , Ismaël Diadié Haïdara (Malí), Jidi Majia (China), Keshab Sigdel (Nepal), Mpesse Géraldin (Cameroon), Nurduran Duman (Türkiye), Oscar Saavedra Villarroel (Chile), Rati Saxena (India), Sever Leonid, Yurievich (Russia), Shreedhar Lohani (Nepal), Soad Alkuwari (Qatar), Svetlana Makarova (Russia),  and Vadim Terekhin (Russia). 

Criticism reviews were written by Fernando Rendon (Colombia), Shivani Sivagurunathan (Malaysia), Daya Disanayake (Sri Lanka), and Bal Bahadur Thapa (Nepal). This issue’s interviews take us to meet Ana María Oviedo (Venezuala), Ammaraj Joshi (Nepal), and Peter Semolic (Slovenia). 

Our dreams are the trees

Messages presented have the words of Alexix Bernaut (France), Andrés Uribe (Colombia), Anna Lombardo (Italy), Cao Shui (China), Gerry Loose (Scotland), Koukis Christos (Greece), Luis Luna (Spain), Melissa Merlo (Honduras), Neşe Yaşın (Cyprus), Nigar Hasan Zadeh (Azerbaiján), Nimrod Bena (Chad), Paul Liam (Nigeria), Shirani Rajapakse (Sri Lanka), Siphiwe Nzima (Lesotho), HRH Zolani Mkiva (South Africa), and Ashraf Aboul-Yazid ((National Coordinator, WPM Egypt) who wrote: 

“In writing poetry, we dream. Our dreams are the trees to give the shadows of peace, the fruits of hope, and the strength of roots. In the first World Congress of the World Poetry Movement, our dreams are invited to communicate. We all seek ways to grow our noble dreams to help our suffering societies. The World Congress is our chance to support these dreams, to let them come true. Different languages will not stop our mutual understanding. Varied cultures will not obstacle our cooperation, and differences of opinion will not keep us silent. We are here to give voices to our dreams, to make them real and human.