Listen to the rain being born,
listen to the earth sing,
wherever you have your home,
listen to the earth sing…

The native peoples in Abya Yala (the Americas) and in the world have been resisting for more than five hundred years against colonialist and racist violence that generates dispossession of their territories, cultures and spirituality. In different territories around the world, the extractivist model is destroying mother earth and threatening the survival of all forms of life. It is the indigenous peoples, made up of women, men, grandmothers, grandfathers, diverse people, children, who are in the front line of care and defence of water, air, subsoil, natural resources, who are being criminalised, repressed and assassinated. These struggles are not alien because the planet where we live is the same, the earth is the same, nature is not outside, it is not only in the jungles, mountains, hills, deserts, plains, glaciers, we are nature and it is alive, here where our feet are, also here in the cities, here inside our bodies.

Grandfathers and grandmothers have said that words have the power to heal, that naming heals and liberates, that words create and destroy worlds. In this sentiment, we call for a global action of solidarity and agreement through the transformative power of poetry, honouring and recognising native peoples and communities, naming injustices, demanding an end to the harassment of those who protect biodiversity, demanding the release of political prisoners for the defence of territory, body, land.

From poetry we sow seeds of hope together with the peoples and communities, let’s light this collective fire from different countries, languages, actions, let’s join our hearts and our words.

                                                       * * *

The World Poetry Movement -WPM- calls its allied organisations, the poets who are grouped in the Movement, its continental and national coordinations, other organisations of poets and artists, academics, scientists and environmentalists to join in this action, holding poetry readings, conversations, artistic actions in their places of residence.

WORLD POETRY MOVEMENT (WPM)
Coordinating Committee

Rati Saxena: poet and director Krytia International Poetry Festival (India).
Ataol Behramoglu: poet, organizer and counselor of Smyrna Poetry Festival (Turkey).
Alex Pausides: poet and director of the International Poetry Festival of La Havana (Cuba).
Ayo Ayoola-Amale, poet and director, Splendors of Dawn Poetry Foundation (Ghana).
Francis Combes: poet and director of Festival International des Poètes en Val-de-Marne (France).
Freddy Ñañez, (Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela)
Agneta Falk: Poet and artist (Sweden).
Vadim Terekhin: Poet and co-president of Writers’ Union of Russia (Russia).
Khalid Raissouni: poet and member of the Writer Union of Morocco (Morocco).
Zolani Mkiva, poet and director of His Royal Heritage International Poetry Festival (South Africa).
Keshab Sigdel: poet and member of Society of Nepali Writers in English (Nepal).
Oscar Saavedra: poet and coordinator of the Latin American poetry meeting Descentralización Poética (Chile).
Luis Filipe Sarmento, poet, editor and TV producer (Portugal).
Ismael Diadié Haidara, poet, philosopher, responsible for the conservation of the Kati Fund (Mali).
Fernando Rendón: poet and director Festival Internacional de Poesía de Medellín (Colombia).