Dear poets, festival coordinators, or enthusiastic admirers of Earth's poetry:

Three years ago around this same date, we contacted many of you to invite you to join a team of dreamers who had had a crazy idea: to dedicate 24 hours on March 21, World Poetry Day (UNESCO, 1999) to read poems without stopping. Today we return to you to let you know not only that we did it, but that we did it spectacularly: every year, more than 400 poets from more than 50 nations read about 1000 poems or more for 24 hours in many languages. The testimony of that unprecedented celebration is on YouTube and Facebook [https://www.youtube.com/@wpdfestival]. We have also published in full color an anthology of 400 pages of the first festival (2022) with a selection of 171 of the 410 poets that participated in that first festival. That book is available in different formats, including an e-flipbook that we attach here so that you enjoy it and share with those you feel will appreciate it: https://heyzine.com/flip-Book/AEEECB8954.html. Here is also the link for the digital edition of the second festival (2023), which we will soon also publish on paper to distribute to universities and libraries: https://heyzine.com/flip-book/f53b199da8.html.

 

We also want to inform you that, although we have already started preparing the 2024 anthology we are still far from its end, especially now that our top priority should be the organization of the fourth 2025 WPD Festival (please contact the poets who read in your group in 2024 for them to send us their contribution). This message is to invite you to join us again this coming March 21 to pay tribute to poetic expression in any of its forms or sounds and to, once again, coordinate a group of poets from your country, your region or your city (you can also gather a group to reflect on a topic that particularly interests your group). To give more groups and countries the opportunity to participate, we are offering each group of poets 30 minutes with six poets reading for five minutes each. If you have more poets, each one will have less time to read. Please be aware that no one can go over the assigned number of minutes, as this breaks the order we have designed and robs time assigned to other poets who will read after you.

 

Participation will be done live through this Zoom link: https://gmu.zoom.us/j/2214081976 or by sending pre-recorded videos to our email: diamundialdelapoesiafest@gmail.com before March 10. Please use Google Drive only. We cannot guarantee your inclusion in the final program if videos are sent via WeTransfer, as we do not have enough helpers to be aware of it at all times. Poets will preferably read in the language in which they write, but they can also read some of their poems in English, Spanish or French. The sooner you answer us, the better, since our plan to connect the entire world in poetry during the 24 hours of March 21 is quite complicated and, although that date seems far away, time flies and there are always last-minute surprises. We really don't have much time to get this madness on track.

 

We hope to be able to count on you again this March 21.

Always in poetry.

Rei

 

PS: In 2022, the theme of the festival was social justice and all united against war. In 2023, we opposed the so-called Artificial Intelligence that attacks the natural intelligence with which poetry empowers humanity. We dedicated the 2024 festival to the tireless pursuit of a solid and lasting peace for all the peoples of the Earth. The central theme of the 2025 World Poetry Day Festival will be Poetry as a dream to change the world and life, that is, presenting poets as dreamers. In this year’s poster (here included), the angel of Poetry spreads its wings over the face of the Earth, making a rain of humanity (after Magritte) to cover the whole planet.