“Faces covered in oil and algae”

Barcelona, 12-14 September 2019

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Convocatoria en español

…the water is putrid / all the fish dead / flotsam surrounds me / trapping my foot / I ask for help / cry out for it / the children taunt me / with faces covered / in oil and algae

 Claribel Alegría, “Ecology”,  I Survive, 1978

The third edition of Otro modo de ser. Festival de poetAs—Another way of being. Festival of women poets—is subtitled ‘Faces covered in oil and algae’, a line from the poem ‘Ecology’ by Claribel Alegría (1924-2018).

For some time now, women and dissidencies have been writing poetry mindful of the predatory destruction affecting the planet. Topics that have become central include: ecology, climate change, relations between humans and non-humans, indigenous ways of co-existing with the Earth and new notions of what we’ve commonly called ‘humanism’.

At our 2019 festival, we aim to give a prominent place to this poetics. We want to explore the metaphorical devices currently being used to reflect on where we stand in relation to nature – although our concept of nature extends beyond an exclusively romantic, idealised or anthropocentric idea, beyond the codified idea of nature placed in opposition to culture. In what way has our relationship with nature, with the non-human, invited us to reassess and fight for our world? How have these relations encouraged us to meditate on cultural dichotomies —those traditional fossilised binaries that shore up a sense of hierarchy and its accompanying methods of exploitation and neoextractivism? Is it possible to expand our thinking about humans?

We are calling for proposals of poetry readings that reflect these relationships, our relationship with each other as well as with the non-human.

The festival is also open to exploring various subthemes, ranging from the everyday, intimacy, the body, ‘insignificant facts’, to crossing borders (language, territory, culture), experimentation and becoming politically active. In other words, poetics that explore strategies of resistance, whether individually or collectively (discriminated groups and abused or marginalised peoples); poetics that capture how we cling on even when swinging, along with other forms of terrestrial life, from a precarious, unstable trapeze.

For this edition, we have also created a section called ‘Reefs’, for readings paying tribute to women poets from various literary fields, past or present. We want to contribute to reviving and disseminating the voices of women poets that, for one reason or another, have remained in the margins.

Plus, there will be open mike sessions.

Find out more about submitting a proposal here. **Deadline has ended**

[We follow closely the issues raised by Berta Cáceres, as well as the ideas of Alicia Puleo, Jorge Riechmann, Roy Scranton, Rosi Braidotti and Timothy Morton.]

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