Poetry night celebrates intense human experiences

A girl's church choir singing the destiny of mankind; family tragedy and death pondered through doing maths; a cellist's attempt at revisiting childhood and relating with deathbed and dementia through music; the memory of a beloved family member; a daughter reconciling her bereavement by wishing the final peace for the deceased through an imaginative "diving" ... all were narrated in Russian, French, Chinese, English, Hungarian and Spanish during the Poetry Night in Hongkou District.

The poetry recital was part of the 2024 Shanghai International Literary Week which began on August 13 and concludes today.

Fourteen poets, artists and cultural celebrities from around the world joined to present an audio, spiritual and visual fest.

"Cemetery" derives from its Greek root meaning "a place for resting." Embedded in it is the ancestors' wish for the deceased to calmly take a rest inside their tombs, explained Irene Vallejo, a Spanish poet, at the beginning of her poem "Diving" (2017).

Murals on some sarcophagus portray meaningful events through people's lives, and the one that finally helps reconcile the deaths of the deceased who matter to us is the image of a naked diving man; he jumps, touches the chilling water, then dives silently to the river bottom – Vallejo ends with a poetic experience that she envisions for the peaceful acceptance of lives passing.

The poet, born in Zaragoza, Spain, studied classical philology and earned a European doctorate from the Universities of Zaragoza and Florence. She has been fascinated by Greek and Roman legends since childhood.

"Poetry is everywhere, for instance in songs, which are like the most popular manifestation of poetry," said Vallejo. "And our daily language is full of metaphors that allow anyone to be a poet for a moment. Poetry is like the music in language and when we're aware of those music in language, we're almost in touch with poetry."

Christian Garcin, a writer, translator and poet from Marseilles, France, is an old friend of China through his many visits to the country since the 1990s.

Among the poems he presented to the audience was one named "China," in which images from traditional Chinese landscape paintings – mist, mountain, creek, meadow, forest, vegetable patch and a monk lighting candle and brewing tea – were restored as a tribute to ancient Chinese painter Ma Yuan (1140-1225), Shi Tao (1642-1707) and Mi Fu (1051-1107), and poets Li Bai (AD 701-762), Wang Wei (AD 701-761) and Du Fu (AD 712-770).

"Even before I came to China for the first time, I read a lot about China's classic poetry and modern novels," said Garcin. "I am also very interested in Chinese paintings. The poem I read was an experience I had in my country when I lived in mountains in Alps. One day when I was looking at the landscape in Alps, there was a mist coming over the trees and the rocks, which really reminded me of some old Chinese paintings. I was therefore inspired to write the poem 'China'."

The writer-poet's latest novel "Le Bon, la Brute et le Renard" was published in 2020, while his 2000 novel "Le Vol Du Pigeon Voyageur" won the Rotary International Top Fiction Award.

French cellist Claire Oppert has been performing music in both concert halls and hospitals and health-care facilities over the past 30 years.

During the poetry recital on Friday night, she read poems which she had composed for her book "Schubert Treatment" during the interludes in her cello performance of world-famous tunes such as Schubert's "Serenade" and Strauss' "Waltzes."

"I've been working with the autistic, people with Alzheimer's disease and those with pain and at the end of life," said Oppert.

"The poetry I recited tonight, I composed for the 'Schubert Treatment' book, which is actually my almost 30 years' experience with healing music.

"My poetry was showing how music is powerful, is transforming our bodies and our hearts, and also is able to connect people. And the music I played actually is also poetry, but with no words, and is expressing all the human feelings in a very smooth and tender way, and also with a lot of strengths and energy."

Russian fiction writer Eugene Vodolazkin, Hungarian writer and photographer Bartis Attila, Spanish fiction writer Andrés Barba and American poet, translator and scholar Forrest Gander took the stage reciting poems of their own or by others.

During the night, artificial intelligence technology was adopted in creating background illustrations on the stage for the poems.

Since the launch in 2011, Shanghai International Literary Week has been held for 11 years. Its poetry night is aimed at promoting cross-cultural and literary exchanges.