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World Poetry Day

March 21, 20226:00 p.m.
MADRID
Casa Árabe Auditorium (at Calle Samuel de los Santos y Gener, 9). 6:00 p.m. Free entry until the room’s capacity is reached.
In Arabic and Spanish.

Casa Árabe, with the cooperation of the Foundation for Islamic Culture and
Religious Tolerance (FICRT) and the Universidad Complutense de Madrid’s
School of Philology, is organizing this event on March 21 to mark World Poetry Day, with the participation of six poets.

It is the poet’s mission to tie the physical experience together with the moral universe to create a view of beauty, truth and good; that point of inflection where we all feel united by one same way of thinking that sublimates our aspirations. While poetry was the quintessential form of literature for Unamuno, it arose from the primordial way in which peoples expressed themselves and is enmeshed amid the very roots of their traditions, an essential feature of their cultures. The genre of poetry develops and spreads our state of mind to transcend writing alone and delve further into the unseen; it provides a universal path for understanding the history of humankind, a space where all of the world’s women and men can meet. In order to celebrate this World Poetry Day in a spirit of brotherhood, six well-known poets will be meeting at Casa Árabe.

The event will open with speeches by representatives from both institutions, Cristina Juarranz, Casa Árabe’s Management Assistant, Jumaa Alkabi, President of the FICRT Foundation, and José Manuel Lucía Megías, Vice-Dean of Library, Culture and Institutional Relations of the Universidad Complutense de Madrid’s School of Philology.

We will then hold a recital given by the following poets: María Victoria Atencia, Luis Alberto de Cuenca, Mohamed Achari, María Ángeles Pérez López and Raquel Lanseros, introduced by Manuel Gahete, director of the Institute of Studies on Góngora at the Royal Academy of Cordoba. Last of all, the event, coordinated by Mohammed Dahiri of the Universidad Complutense de Madrid, will end with a musical performance by the Arabic oud player Hames Bitar.

About the poets:

Luis Alberto de Cuenca: a Spanish poet, philologist, Hellenist, translator, essayist, columnist, critic and literary editor. He is a full member of Spain’s Royal Academy of History, a member of the Granada Academy of Letters, a member of the Prado Museum Royal Board of Trustees and a jury member for the Princess o Asturias Literature Award.

María Victoria Atencia: a poet, member of Spain’s Generation of ‘50, winner of the Andalusian Critics Award in 1998 and the National Critics Award in 1998.

Mohamed Achari: a poet, essayist, president of the Moroccan Writers Union (1989-1996), Morocco’s Minister of Culture (1998-2002), and winner of the Argana Poetry Prize (2020).

María Ángeles Pérez López: a poet and professor of Spanish-American Literature at the University of Salamanca.

Raquel Lanseros: a poet and translator, among other awards, she has been given the Critics Award of 2019, and is a professor at the University of Zaragoza.