Artisan jam showcases passion
of poetry

By Victoria Okoye
Adelante Staff

CHRIS GUBBELS/Adelante
MU English major Kyle Seibel reads a poem at the Spanish Poetry Jam at the Cherry Street Artisan in Columbia on Thursday, April 28.

Poetry jams are a monthly event at the Cherry Street Artisan in Columbia, but the April 28 jam had a different accent: For the first time in more than a year, poems in Spanish, by Spanish-language poets or on Spanish subjects were in the spotlight.

To a background of flamenco guitar music, people took the stage and read poems by Chilean poet Pablo Neruda, Federico García Lorca of Spain and Langston Hughes, an African-American poet who spent time in Spain during the country's civil war.

For some, like Kyle Seibel, an MU student studying English, it was the first time reading before an audience. Seibel doesn't speak Spanish, so he read English translations of Neruda's poems. For him, the tone and themes of the poetry aren’t lost in translation.

“While most European poets will be more meandering, Spanish-language poets tend to be urgently passionate,” Seibel said. “The language isn't veiled, but the purpose is. That's what I find engaging.”

Yindra García, who moved to Columbia from her native Cuba nine months ago, stumbled upon the Spanish poetry jam by accident. She read Neruda’s poem, “Me gusta cuando callas,” (I like for you to be still).

García said she prefers poetry to prose because it's more concise. Poetry “is something you do just for now,” she said. “A novel takes time. I like the rhymes in poetry too. It just flows.”

And for at least one night, Columbia felt a little like home to García. “It was great having that Spanish here,” she said.
Michael Ugarte, a Spanish professor at MU and a fan of Langston Hughes, read the writer's “Letter from Spain.” It describes an encounter between an African-American soldier and his “enemy,” an African Moor, and what Ugarte said was the irony of two black men fighting against each other in the Spanish Civil War.

Ugarte then recited his own Spanish translation of the poem, dedicating it to Donato Ndongo-Bidyogo, a visiting professor at MU. Ndongo is a writer from Equatorial Guinea living in Spain whose work Ugarte is translating.

Derek Jenkins, who helps run Artisan's monthly poetry jams, hosted the event and contributed a few poems. He said he’s learning Spanish and that the slam was an opportunity for people who are learning the language. “Even those dabbling in the language like me can enjoy this,” he said.

Jenkins said he would probably schedule another Spanish-language jam in the summer or fall.