Poetry Sans Frontiers Season 3 - Ep. 2- Life

Of course, we can do without poetry. But then life without poetry would be nothing but nature without beauty. History without romance. Spring arriving without any signs of hope. Summertime gone too soon. Nostalgia with no memory and words with no significance. How then under such circumstance could two hearts thousands of miles apart beat as one? We narrate the story of life. We cradle its hands. We peer into the depth of its eyes and in return it meets our gaze with a glimmer of hope. As delicate as life may seem, so too is its resilience. Destiny may strive to seize hold of your life, but it cannot quench the light within your heart. Even when each breath is filled with the smoke of gunpowder, the very fact that there is breath at all signifies hope. I don't love you, Wahid. You married me because I'm your cousin. I've never thought of you throughout my life, and I never thought I'd think of you this day. My father blushed, and he raised his hand and hit it. My mother screamed and said, You're not a human, you're an animal. You're only five years old. Amir, the show must go on. The story is empty. What's going on, Wahid? I'm waiting for the judges to decide. If they don't. I'm not going to do anything. I can't let this happen. Today there's a case against me for four million years. I've had millions of people on my case. Say it, Abdallah Al-Hakam. I tried to go to the court as a job. I couldn't. I couldn't find myself anywhere else than in this theater. It's supposed to be the finest stages of humanity. It's supposed to be the artist, the most sensitive person. I did a play between Aleppo and Damascus. Because of the war, I couldn't go to the High Institute of Theater Arts. The second day was Rama's birthday, a year ago. He was in the neighborhood where we lived in. Jibha, Damascus. So he went outside. After about two or three hours, there was a fire. I was carrying Rama. After I calmed down a bit, I wanted to go out. Then I found people running around. They were bringing firecrackers to put out the fire. Then I waited about half an hour. I was walking on the blood of Rama. The blood was on Rama's father's body. I tried to feel the loss of my brother as well. I tried to feel the loss of Rama's father. With time, you feel like you don't have anything left. Because you're losing things. You don't have anything left. Because if you have something and you lose it, it's over. If a stone is injured, for example, and it tears a person apart, it's over. You don't have anything precious or special, except for your father and Rama. Don't you miss your father? Come, stand with me. We've been waiting for you. I'm fine. You're fine? I felt like I was denying Rama for a while. Because I feel like I'm not me. Any person has many lives. Many lives. This is a dream. Or a past life. I can't tell if this is a reality that happened to me or not. I'm sorry. Come on, I'm sorry. You're not normal. I'm sorry. My father, my father, my husband. I'm sorry. My father is everything to me. He's enough for me. He's my bridge. I feel this way with Rama. But my father is like a bridge. I learned from him that I don't care about anything in life. I'm not afraid of anything. But I wonder where he gets this energy from. He's the generation that's been through more than Aleppo. Because there's a difference. It's Aleppo. There are wars. And I'm still able. For me, Aleppo is like this place we're in. But it's not like we're going to put a stone in its place and go back to the house as it was. I just hope we can go back to the way it was. Or that Rama doesn't lose anything of his humanity. Or that my siblings are okay. This is what Aleppo means to me. Aleppo for my parents. Mama, how many people are in here? About 60 or 70 girls. Why? Don't they have a mother and a father? They don't have a mother and a father. They have siblings. They're siblings too. We're their siblings. The story starts when the sun sets. The lazy one goes to bed. The hungry one wakes up. What are you doing, hungry one? Don't bother me! Hurry up! I want to be happy. Even if I cry. Or I'm sad. I feel that this is how it should be. They don't have a mother or a father. Or siblings. But they have siblings. We're siblings. We make a happy family. And we try to help them. We make them laugh. We make them feel that there's someone around them. I feel that my mother used us as a shield. She did a lot. She put in a lot of effort. I feel that she did something good. I feel proud. That she's my mother. That she did this. We're alive and well. And we have a dream. Here, in the middle of nowhere, we live in eternity. We're still here. We're building from the ashes the towers of a moon dove. We're still here. We're raising the eternal robe. We're still here. And we have our big dreams. Like we're taking the wolf to the forest in a year-long dance party. And we have our little dreams. Like we're waking up from a dream that heals us from the bad. We don't dream of bad things. Life is about constantly using your writing and your creation to fill up a sense of boredom and boredom as well as a sense of emptiness and void. You have to use your creation and meaningful things to fill it up. Everything runs towards the river and the sun pierces my eyes. For several months, I close my eyes and lie on my bed. That's where I'll lie for the rest of my life. I think what I want to do in this life is to write. Especially to write poems. For me, is what I started to like The first poem I wrote was when I was in college. At that time, I didn't have much confidence in writing. I just loved writing and writing poems. So I felt like I was writing. But a friend of mine got me the Dianchi from Yunnan and published it. It was in 1981 or 1982. After I graduated from college, I was still working and writing poems. But at the Institute of Physics, they still wanted me to put more effort into my major. My ideal of writing and my work have a lot of contradictions. In 1986, after attending the Youth Poetry Conference I felt like I still wanted to do what I wanted and wanted to do the most. So I resigned from my position. I was working and writing at the same time. This is the best female poet in China. She just... This is for her mother. Otherwise, her mother would think that this is for me. My mother is wearing make-up. Red flags and song are dancing for her. And I have to wait until many years later in another era to imitate my mother's make-up and attend a make-up dance. In 1990, I saw a book on the street in New York called Freida Kahnon. I was attracted by her The book I read was her second solo exhibition. At that time, the art world started to notice her. But now, I think she has gone beyond the time, the trend, and the history of art. Her works are full of understanding of life. If she were just an artist, she wouldn't be admired by so many women. She turned her limited life and her short life into the driving force I think this is her outstanding point and what attracts me. In 2019, I started to paint the first painting in my life. But it was a well-prepared thing. I have been for two or three years. So when I started to paint, she inspired my passion. In fact, what I want to express is exactly the same as what my brother wants to express. We are creators. My mother said her ideal seems to be than life itself. Creation is happy compared to destruction. People understand this. I have been writing for almost 40 years. I like to write without repetition. Because I feel bored So in these 40 years, if you can't keep challenging yourself, your writing will be boring. What I pay more attention to is the future. The poem I wrote is full of my concerns and thoughts For me, it's like sitting on a train. There must be all kinds of situations But you know you have to get off the train one day. If you want to talk about eternal life, you have to talk about death. The iron hammer knocks on the south wall. The modern city is building a high-pitched area. The common growth is great and majestic. Who cares about the city of time under her feet? The beauty of controversy The beauty of the mother who is busy building The beauty of the body is fading away little by little And the more fragmented part of time shows her unchanging power Because of my experience, my knowledge, the tradition of my life, being an ambassador in China could be important for my country. I came to China for the first time 60 years ago, in 1963. I was still a child, I was 13 years old. My father, who was a great admirer of Chinese culture and the Chinese government, accepted a contract as a language teacher at the Institute of Foreign Languages. Since there were no international schools, my sister and I started attending a Chinese school. I lived in China basically from 1963 until 1975. After I returned from China, I participated in revolutionary activities in Colombia for several years until I realized that what really interested me the most and that was why I decided to study cinema and I started working as a filmmaker because I realized that I had many things in my head that I wanted to convey to the people who wanted to listen to me. My first film, La Estrategia del Caracol, is a film that is inspired by a Chinese fable called How the Old Fool Moved the Mountain. What interests me the most when I'm doing my cinematographic work is having stories that show how the power of the human being can transform society. I feel that the reason to live is the capacity to transform oneself. Ultraman! Just as I like making films that show how man is capable of transforming society, I, personally, like to feel how I am capable of transforming myself. And that is life for me, a permanent struggle to transform myself, to be better, to be more useful, to correct my mistakes, to polish my virtues. Personally, I like to feel how I am capable of transforming myself. There is a French philosopher, Alain Badiou, who has a very beautiful definition of art. He says that artists are in charge of shaping what has no shape. We don't have tools. Artists only have imagination. And with that imagination we have to shape what has no shape. We have to invent. And I, let's say, from my position as an artist, I live alert. I always look where I can contribute to detect problems. Not only problems, but also virtues. I believe that artists have a greater social responsibility. And I have always maintained a lot of closeness with China because it is a country that I carry in my heart. It is a country that I love a lot, where I have many friends, many memories. And it is a country that I admire a lot. At the moment when I was proposed to be an ambassador, I was very surprised. I even had the temptation to thank the privilege, but to say no, that I did not feel that I was prepared for a task like that. But I realized that being an ambassador in China could be important for my country because I think it is good that the ambassador in a country knows a lot about that country, and that is my case. So when I finally decided that I was going to accept to be an ambassador, I realized that it is not so different from being a film director. There is a certain similarity in the work of an ambassador, who is ultimately the director of a delegation of people who are very prepared to manage the relations between the two countries. In my life, it has been a very important change. I have changed my desire to transmit my ideas and to talk about what I think by transmitting the ideas of my government and to seek to improve the relations between China and Colombia, which is something that really gives me a lot of satisfaction. Sonata by Álvaro Mutis Time has once again brought you close to my funeral dreams Your skin, a certain saline humidity Your eyes, astonished by other days With your voice, they have come, with your hair The time, girl who works Like a wolf burying her puppies Like rust in hunting weapons Like algae in the ship's keel Like tongue that licks the salt of the sleeping Like the air that rises from the mines Like the train in the night of the parrots From your dark work we nourish ourselves Like the bread of a Christian who rams meat that soaks in the fever of the ghettos In the shadow of time, my friend, in the clear water of the drought, you give me back what I keep from you to help me reach the end of each day Amidst life's torrent and tumult, we observe the dance of life and death Like two poles entwined in an everlasting embrace the value of life transcends temporal spans resting instead in the decision to enrich our inner selves In each moment and every locale life's golden season unfurls May our journey be a canvas of brilliance and colorful hues and every fleeting moment a hymn of celebration sung in praise of life In the precious world of men I am living Strong is the sunlight Tender is the ripple The cloud covers layer by layer I weep to know the returning cloud The night must come and the shackles must break Living in this precious world the soil is high and the walls are rough Listening to the song of the bear I am filled with joy When I think of such a long journey I feel that my life is full of joy On the last day of the world I would want to plant a tree I want a tree that stands in the earth for the first time The wind shakes off my fears As the sun fades I breathe