This past Wednesday, Sept. 24, Fitz Books and Waffles was host to a poetry reading night featuring bilingual poets sharing poems in both English and their native language. The languages featured were Portuguese and Spanish, with four poets in total. The night started off calm with poets, organizers and audience members mingling around the long tables of books running down the center of the store.
At 8:00 pm, everyone was gathered to the back of the store to stake their claim on metal chairs or stand in the back, (wherever had the best vantage point) all positioned in the glowing blue light of the projector.
One of the organizers of the event, Carlos Amador, an associate professor of Spanish at UB, took to the mic to give a wonderfully blithe yet meaningful introduction to all that the night held in store. Amador started by introducing the four poets, Diego Espíritu, Marlon PV, Christina Vega-Westhoff and Nuno Brito, not necessarily in that order, before the poets all took turns taking to the stage, reading from their own collection of poems.
Diego Espíritu is a poet, writer, and researcher currently studying for his PhD in Spanish Literature in UB’s Department of Romance Languages and Literature. Espíritu, who read first, chose to read his poems by stanzas in English then Spanish. The poignancy of each poem could be felt as he transitioned from English to his native tongue, his demeanor changing from explanative to expressive with ease and confidence. Espíritu was kind enough to give this writer some insight into his work explaining that,
“What inspires me to write is precisely that there is not one specific source to rely on… The unknown itself through a bunch of mites. And if you’re lucky, you’ll feel a random thunder while doing the dishes.”
He went on to explain,
“What I would like people to take from my writing is the possibility of communication. What I value most is that poetry allows me to communicate not only my own figure or silhouette, but also to share a perspective of how I see the world and the things that surround me. In that sense, writing is not about providing definitive answers but about posing better questions, questions that open new ways of knowing ourselves and others.”
Following Espíritu’s performance was Christina Vega-Westhoff, a poet, translator and aerialist. Vega-Westhoff’s presentation featured a screening of a short film she made herself before the rest of her poems. In her short film, the audience could get a feel for her work, using the visual and kinetic aspects of movement to represent the poetry of film and storytelling. Like Espíritu before her, Vega-Wethoff also chose to read her poems in English with certain phrases, lines and stanzas following in Spanish.
Vega-Westhoff’s multi-media presentation and reading was followed by the poet Nuno Brito. Brito is a Visiting Assistant Professor of Portuguese for UB’s Department of Romance Languages and Literatures. Brito’s reading was in English and Portuguese, following the same format as the previous two. His reading was lighter and more whimsical with some of his poems being inspired by his daughter, a sentiment made clearer by the joy and love expressed vibrantly across his face as he read.His performance, as of all the poets, translated not only his native language but his subsequent meaning as well across different cultures.
The last poet but certainly not least was Marlon PV, a Tijuana born poet and visual artist. PV had a slightly different approach, choosing to read her poems entirely in Spanish but to have the English translations of them projected behind her on a screen. This allowed her to read in the full and unencumbered space designated between her and the words that filled the page in front of her. PV’s poems were incredibly touching, many of them depicting the violence and drug trafficking that’s so pervasive in Tijuana. The subject matter made all the more heartbreaking with the picturesque words of her poems. PV took a moment to explain the inspiration behind her poetry explaining how,
“Almost everything inspires me. Everyday life, humanity, love, but also desire, injustice, and my context.”
She further elaborated by contextualizing what she writes most about being,
“my social and political context. I write from the wounds we suffer in the system, from the resilience of being a woman on the border. But also about love, desire, family. About renunciation and rebirth.
Context really does matter in all that we do and create, this night of exceptionally talented poets contextualized their mythologized experiences for an audience of almost strangers into almost friends, if not friends already. It is through the art of human connection that we begin to see each other for who we are and to be able to communicate not only the thoughts in our heads but the desires of our hearts.
If you would like to show support for any of these amazing artists they can be found on Instagram at:
@diego__espritu
@marlon.punchdrunk
@christina.vega.westhoff
@nunobritosousaub
Marina Noack the senior arts editor can be reached at marina.noack@ubspectrum.com
