News at Eleven (Back Page): The rain began falling at six in the evening

on a thousand-odd heads in the amphitheatre. Thunder cracked and the sky fell in sheets of rain. Many people left, but nearly as many stayed. At 10pm, after six hours of recitals, Alhaji Susso from Gambia, the last of 57 poets, rose to the stage to close the International Poetry Festival of Medellín. He sang and plucked the strings of his kora, and the soaked audience danced and clapped beneath umbrellas. When he finished and the audience sang out for more, nobody doubted that what so many poets have said is true. Medellín is the world capital of poetry.

This is no small achievement.

from The Guardian: Medellín's poems of peace

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