The scene opened with a lizard that seemed to wear a smile, a peaceful gaze, and a curious eagerness to map a journey to Rome or Greece, places cherished by those gathered. After Don Felipe’s address concluded, the lizard slipped away again into the shadows where music filled the air.
Away from lectures and papers, the lizard returned as verse. The king was absent from the applause, yet a cheerful lizard moved across the stage, entering and exiting with the rhythm. When the scholarly distractions ended, the poets’ voices filled the room, and then quiet settled once more.
Applause dominated the moment as the world clapped while elsewhere the city awaited its turn. In a breath of revelry, people mixed cocktails and shared laughter. Cádiz pretended to be a girl, turning away from the epidemic with a stubborn defiance, while the crowd prepared for music and spoken word. A simple refrain rang clear: do not trust empty chatter as a child would mock it.
That moment carried a weight like a monument to language. It was a reminder that language, much like poetry, should push boundaries and invite individual thought. When the Nicaraguan poet, a figure who resembled an ancient Greek in appearance, spoke of his loss, seven dictators were driven from their lands. The crowd rose to steady his breath, refusing to let fear take hold.
The speaker’s gaze carried the message forward, as if saying, “This is my homeland, and it cannot be taken away.” He wielded the microphone and the verse with authority, blending prose and poetry to declare that what the dictator Ortega stole from him belonged to him and to his compatriot Sergio Ramírez. The air itself belongs to those who claim it; a homeland endures for those who stand by it as theirs, just as the land that now is Spain belongs to them all.
A Russian-Colombian poet offered a tribute to his father with a dedication that spoke of farewell, of Lenin’s austere shadow, and the last light of childhood. Argentinean Hugo Mujica, a veteran who seeks silence, noted that silence is a form of poetry in itself. It speaks through erasure, through the dawn, and through fears quelled by quiet resolve.
Maria Scarecrow, a Mexican voice known for watching over, sent his daughters toward their mood for lyricism, sometimes culminating in a more heavenly shade of red, a symbol of intensity and beauty.
The carnival stage flourished with natural humor as the city’s Cádiz humorists melded sound and beauty with a touch of surrealism. Ana Rosetti stood among the crowd, a seasoned poet who found joy among his people even as the bay cooled. He proclaimed that poetry should exist where it is needed, and joked about selling love, a wink at how language and desire intertwine. The audience watched as a seed of mustard-like brightness was spoken of, toasted to as the smallest seed yet hailed as the greatest in the Andalusian afternoon and night. A grateful nod to poetry rose from the crowd: Thank you, poetry, ma’am.
The curtain lingered in a loving pause, as if to savor every detail that life holds. Applause kept the performers on stage, and a bold, lyrical guerrilla entered, the Honduran poet Federico Granados, who, like the others, honored Gioconda and Sergio, calling attention to their shared history of struggle. From Arcadia to the present, he reminded the audience that after famine and dust, there is still fertile ground for voice and memory.
The poet opened again, stepping to the pulpit with a renewed rhythm. Juan Jose Tellez crafted a remarkable vocabulary, and Fernando Quiñones brought the scene to life with fifty names drawn from Andalusia, along with Bob Dylan and other international flamenco artists. Tellez observed that in the south people have learned to laugh and cry in close tandem.
Then came the crying babies, the voices drawing nearer, and as the curtain finally released its grip, laughter returned and the sense of joyful poetry from the opening moments resurfaced in a bright, enduring way.
So the writer began to compose this reflection, admitting that it turned out in a way akin to how lizards move at night—an image of resilience and flexibility, a reminder that poetry can bend, rise, and win the moment even in the face of stern academic gravity.
In the end, the author notes the king’s cajon tapping, a small miss here or there, a reminder that the music and the poets themselves carried the room forward, even when not every musician matched the expected names. The rhythm persisted, and the night breathed with poetry’s stubborn vitality.