Poems with settings from the Middle Eastern conflict on stage in Bogota

From the 3rd til the 9th of May NOOR productions Tale Næss was one of two guests at the specially focused edition of Bogota International Poetry Festival.
  The focus followed to strands. One was the topic of peace - and the other on contemporary norwegian poetry.
  Næss`poetry was written after several journeys in the Middle East and reflects the conflict there and the strain it lies on the individuals sovereignty over her own life and her abillity to express herself.
  Underneath is an interview by Næss, written for the festivals web page and magazine. The interview is en spanish and english.

Which relationships do you think there are between poetry and peace?

I consider peace the foundation that all public life. It`s what free citicenship is built upon.
Considero que la paz es la fundación de toda vida pública. Sobre la paz está construída la libertad ciudadana.
It’s the space from where freedom can be built. The freedom to feel, to raise ones
La paz es el espacio desde el cual la libertad puede ser construída. La libertad de sentir, de expresar la opinion de cada uno, de expresar los sentimientos de uno artísticamente en tiempos de Guerra donde todo esto, está bajo un constante trato o relación.
 opinions, to express ones feelings artistically In wartime all of this is under a constant treat. For people to enjoy poetry, and for poetry to be written and distributed freely – peace is a premise we cannot ignore.
La relación que pienso hay entre la poesía y la paz: para la gente que disfrute de la poesía, y para la poesía que sea escrita y distribuida libremente – la paz es una premisa que no podemos ignorar.

  That does not mean that great poetry cannot be produced in wartimes or under conflicts.
Esto no significa que la mejor poesía no pueda ser producida en tiempos de Guerra o bajo situaciones de conflictos.
Great poets like Neruda and Darwish wrote not only in times of conflict and violence, but
Grandes poetas como Neruda y Darwish escribieron no sólo en tiempos de conflicto y violencia sino sobre esos conflictos, y el esfuerzo, aprisionamiento en esa situación y estado de violencia pueden influir en una persona y en la gente en un sentido existencial.
 about those conflicts and the toil, imprisonment and state violence can exercise on a person and a people in an existential sense.
De este modo, la poesía puede ser un camino para expresar la necesidad de paz, y la sucia verdad del efecto devastador que la ausencia de ello puede tener en lo individual y en la Sociedad.
   In this way, poetry can be a way to express the necessity for peace, and the dirty truth of the mutilating effect a lack of it can have on the individual and the society.

• On the other side of the same question: Do you think we could talk about some kind of influence or relation between poetry and war?

 
Peace is at the chore of poetry, because in poetry we set language free. It`s what we
La paz está en la labor de la poesía, en su trabajo rutinario, porque en poesía, dejamos al lenguaje ser libre. Es lo que revelamos, entristecidos y en sentimientos de enojo. Incluso mi rabia, cuando veo atrocidades desde lejos en mi pacífica Escandinavia. Comienzo a tratarlo como un contenedor para mi rabia y mi desesperación, y para encontrar un punto de encuentro para la solidaridad- entre nosotros quienes vivimos en paz en aqullos que no.
Y puede tener una función retórica y llenar una necesidad psicológica.
Alguna poesía, nunca podría haber sido escrita en tiempo de paz, y del otro modo, igual, así que sí. Hay una relación. La poesía puede expresar los extremos. Puede cristalizar un momento histórico y al mismo tiempo traer a la superficie su dimensión existencial.
 
turn to in sorrow and in rage. Even my rage, when I see atrocities from afar in my peaceful Scandinavia. I turn to it as a container for my rage and my despair, and to find a meeting point for solidarity – between us who live in peace and those who do not.
And it can have a rhetorical function and fill a psychological need.
Some poetry could never have been written in the time of peace, and the other way around, so yes. There is a relationship. Poetry can express the extremes. It can crystallize a historical moment and at the same time bring to the surface its existential dimension.
 
To say two more things at the same time, is a quality of poetry. The beauty AND the violence. The clashes of nations AND the personal loss.
Maybe that’s why poetry and war are tied together. Poetry CAN be present at the worst of time. It can fill a role – the need to prevent a war, soothe the feeling of loss and helplessness, give courage or even manage to say something that feels true in times of chaos and crises.
Al mismo tiempo, para decir dos cosas más, es una cualidad de la poesía. La belleza Y la violencia. Los enfrentamientos  de las naciones Y la evasión personal.
Quizás es por eso que poesía y Guerra van juntas, están atadas. La Poesía puede estar presente en lo peor de un tiempo. Puede llenar una función – la necesidad de prevenir una Guerra, calmar el sentimiento de estar perdidos y sin ayuda, dar corage o incluso arreglárselas para decir algo que se sienta verdadero en tiempos de caos y de crisis.
  

• How do you see from your country, the armed conflict in Colombia? Do you know or imagine why this conflict start?

The way I see the conflict in Colombia is of course shaped by where I live and how and what information is given to me.
As I see it today it is a conflict that has arrisen due to several factors: preassure from colonial forces, the divition between rich and poor, a weakness in the democratic processes and a spiral of violence tied the additive effect of these factors.
El modo en que veo el conflicto armado en Colombia está por supuesto formado por las circunstancias de dónde yo vivo, y cómo, y qué información nos es dada y me llega.
Como lo veo hoy este es un conflicto que ha pasado debido a varios factores: la presión de las fuerzas colonialistas, la división entre ricos y pobres, puntos débiles o flojeras en los procesos democráticos y una espiral de violencia encadena el efecto aditivo de estos factores.
 -In your role as poet and playwright, How do you conceive the architecture spaces in your work?
The space is very important for my work.
When I visited the Medelline poetry festival, I was so inspired by the way the city had tried to change its social makeup through architecture and city planning.
It`s in the way we build our houses, plan our cities, house our poor, we show our ideology and put our ideas of humanism into praxis.
The setting is for me a great inspiration.
The park, a derrilict oilplatform, a parkinglot, a dried out riverbed, an empty shopping mall. The urban wasteland.
My latest poetic work that I am working on now, will take form as a gathering of voices in the city of Detroit. I will spend a month there this summer. It will be about city-planning – and the consequences it has had for the people living in the city.
In my latest play, “S O A R E”, all my caharacters are gathered at the end in a huge multystory hotell at the centre of a large city.
The hotell gets slowely filled by water. The water rises to the first floor, the second floor, the forth floor and so on, untill the windows burts and the water spurts out onto the lawn, the trees and flowerbeds underneath. Dry from months without rain, suddenly turning everything violently green.-
* (Para publicarse en / To be published at: REVISTA CÚPULA – Director: Darío Sánchez Carballo)