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Tribute to quijote negro
02July
Articles

Tribute to quijote negro

Texts: Teresa Melo 

El Encuentro de Poetas del Caribe y el Mundo (Meeting of the Poets of the Caribbean and the World), a foundational space of the Fiesta del Fuego (The Fire Fest) of Santiago de Cuba, is now named after its founder: Jesus Cos Causse, also known as the Quijote Negro (Black Quixote). In those early days, when it was named Taller de Poesía (Poetry Workshop,) the tall and thin figure of Cos summoned writers from a large number of nations. They were attracted by his charisma and the chance to partake in a «hugs party» that allowed to rescue and interact with diverse manifestations of popular culture and, above all, know their «bearers».

Being one of the Festival's many workshops, it tries to insert itself coherently in the proposal that the festival itself is. It does not defend a specific aesthetic but is committed to the inclusion of all voices: both the most and least recognized, and those that begin to be heard by others. That is poetry as a necessary language and open to everyone, which expressed in the verse of Kos that presides over us, is the «lamp of the world».

Santiago de Cuba vibrates in a special way from July 3 to 9. Thinking, music, the performing and visual arts, with the background sound of a Chinese bugle honoring the ancestors, the wild spirit of the mountain, the bodies laughing under the sun, and the poetry, always the poetry, emanating from all this in a mixture that nurtures our common dreams.