Dialogue Through Poetry / UNESCO World Poetry Day - Readings in Oxford City, UK. 2003.

 

"Dialogue Through Poetry" 

UNESCO World Poetry Day -  

Poetry Readings in Oxford City, UK.

Organized by Erminia Passannanti

Maison Françoise d'Oxford

Presentazione per Dialogue 2003

The knowledge we hold of at least one language, says Chomsky, is partly innate and partly learned. When we acquired our mother tongue, we were placed in the condition to enter, without full awareness, the intricate network of our cultural background, indispensable to becoming meaningful speakers. This is confirmed by the fact that children who, abandoned or isolated in infancy, are deprived of the imaginative nourishment of fables and rhymes, never truly develop their linguistic skills, thus proving the irreparable damage caused by stimuli introduced too late.

From the moment we entered, through language, into the richness of our civilizations, we have partaken in them by communicating thoughts, plans, tastes, judgements, and feelings. Dialogue is our daily experience; it safeguards our survival. Soliloquy may persist as a choice, when a person occasionally, or pathologically, refuses to share his or her views and emotions with others. Speaking to oneself may carry great impact when the actor on stage performs an a parte. Yet, in truth, it is dialogue that makes encounter possible.

As for poetry, one must acknowledge that its primary task is not always communication in the public sphere. It is intimate, at times opaque, highly selective, and often synthetic, artificial, even, to the point of risking impenetrability. And yet, we might describe the lyric poet’s soliloquy as a disguised form of dialogue: the dialogue of the Self with the soul, the dialogue of the soul with its many doubles.

There are poetic traditions that confirm this, such as Italian Ermetismo in the twentieth century, or Joyce’s poetics of the stream of consciousness, traditions that make poetry deliberately uncommunicative. And yet, in both, the theme of incommunicability serves to emphasise the need for dialogue, to lament its loss.

Let us then turn to what poetry can still grant us, in terms of human exchange.

(Erminia Passannanti, Oxford )

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Message by the Director-General of UNESCO on the occasion of World Poetry Day, 21 March 2003 — Koïchiro Matsuura

Delivered by Mr. J. Kyazze, UNESCO Representative to the United Nations

“Poetry is human language reduced to its essential rhythm,” said Mallarmé. Poetry is indeed a language that delves deep into the human soul and expresses the mysterious meaning of existence. As the highest expression of a language, it should occupy a special place in our lives.

Language, with its distinctive rhythms and music, the interplay of words and their many meanings, is the raw material of all poetry. Fables, myths and legends, heroic deeds and tales have been passed on, at first orally and then by way of a variety of writing systems, since the dawn of humanity. For each community, language is a badge of identity and a means of discovering the world, and also one of the main vectors of cultural diversity.

Poetry is a major cultural factor, a total language that constitutes the expression of a deep-seated desire to live with others and hence an essential instrument for bringing peoples closer together. It is a reflection and mirror of communities and the foremost vehicle for self-affirmation, but it is also a decisive lever in creativity, progress and, shared development.

Poetry therefore helps us to live together. It is essential to intercultural dialogue and harmonious interaction among the different communities of the world. Encouraging its creation, its dissemination, and its translation is another way of promoting cultural diversity, a vital source of inspiration conveyed by the living unity of poets through the myriad facets of their creativity.

Today, 21 March, World Poetry Day, I invite Member States, associations, and each and every individual to celebrate poetry and to reflect on the fundamental role it plays in intercultural dialogue, a pledge of peace.