Vol. 73/No. 13      April 6, 2009

Among the many poets attending the festival will be Ataol Behramoglu from Turkey. He served 10 years in prison in the early 1980s for his alleged activities in the Turkish Peace Committee. Nancy Morejon and Orlando Silverio will participate from Cuba, as will Te Kupu, a Maori poet from New Zealand; Gilles Dossou-Gouin from Norway; Esther Celis from Colombia; Allison Hedge Coke, from the United States; Gary Geddes, from Victoria, British Columbia; and other poets and musicians from elsewhere in Canada. A theater company from the National Autonomous University of Mexico will also attend.

The Cuban Five—Antonio Guerrero, Gerardo Hernández, Ramón Labañino, Fernando González, and René González—have been locked up since September 1998. At the time of their arrests in Miami they were gathering information on right-wing Cuban exile groups that carried out violent attacks on Cuba with Washington's complicity.

The festival opens April 24 with a gala of poetry and music. The following day will feature panel discussions on topics such as the role of poets in political and social resistance and "The Law As a Weapon: the Cuban Five, Pakistan, the U.S. and Canada." That day will end with a "Homage to Poets of Resistance Past."

Throughout the following days, events will take place all around Toronto, in churches, community centers, the Toronto Women’s Bookstore, and other locations.

On April 26 there will be a poetry reading and music with the Krittibas Bengali Literary Group. Later that day the South Asian People’s Forum hosts the Faiz Peace Festival, honoring the prominent Pakistani poet Faiz Ahmed Faiz. He was arrested in 1951 and spent four years in prison, charged with conspiring to carry out a coup. His daughter, Muneeza Hashmi, is trying to get a visa from the Canadian government to participate in the festival.

On April 28 is a cartoon exhibit by the Art Service Union, which will include cartoons by Gerardo Hernández.

On April 29 there will be a celebration of the 50th anniversary of the Cuban Revolution, with funds raised going to the Hurricane Fund for Cuba.

The festival is being prepared through 10 pre-festival events, including a reading and music evening March 24, for which the Davenport-Perth Neighborhood Center has issued a call for local residents to participate.

Admission to all events is free except the Faiz Peace Festival, which costs $10. For more information write to resistancepoetryfest@gmail.com.  
 
 
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