Poetry Festival

Nicaragua is known world wide as the "Mecca" of poetry. Sound - - a huge piece of the Latin American cultural tapestry, is softer here - - expressed often in poetic form rather than the more familiar medium of music. Sometimes radical and confrontational, the themes of Nicaraguan poetry address concerns of the people - including poverty, war, identity and nature.

Today ends a week of celebrating the love of the written and spoken word here in Granada.
Poets from around the world gathered for the seventh annual poetry festival, to share their appreciation of the beauty of language. The different idiomas provide a variety of "canvases" for creative verbal expression. During evening "recitals" in the Parque Central, poems were translated from one language to another and then recited, side by side. It was as if we were viewing two paintings of the same scene - - one in water color and the other in oil.

Photos on this post show the mid-week parade - a mock funeral procession - for the death of the sorrows of the soul.