On May 15, I participated as a guest writer in Tertulia Latina, an event organized by the cultural association CreArte Latino and hosted by Bookstore1 in Sarasota, Florida.
The gathering was a multidisciplinary artistic experience that combined literature, music, and visual arts. Alongside Cuban-American writer Ofelia Díaz, I read poems that explored exile from different angles: not just as a migratory phenomenon, but also as an inner exile: the feeling of not fully belonging anywhere, the longing for the past and for what we’ve left behind. I’m very grateful for the thoughtful comments of writer and journalist Juan Pablo Salas, who hosted the event.
Colombian writer Elvira Sánchez Blake presented an excerpt from her book Suma Paz, recently translated and published in English as Suma Paz: A Chronicle of Love and Peril in Defense of Nature, a nonfiction story about the assassination of environmental leaders amid Colombia’s armed conflict. It’s a theme that deeply resonates with Latin Americans, because “passive” and “active” forms of violence, from state terrorism and paramilitary groups have, sadly, been a constant reality for us.
It was a truly special recital, not only for the poetry, but also for the live music by the group Tierra Nueva, who performed a varied repertoire of Andean music. I believe the Andes (that mountain range that spans across South America) is like Latin America’s backbone, echoing all the way to the Caribbean and far to the jungle and to the north of the continent.
Throughout the evening, visual artist Larry Henry sat at his easel and painted live in acrylic on canvas, inspired by the poems I read.
The result was Of the Tides and Winds, a powerful piece that captured both the inner and outer storms that define the experience of diaspora. Like many Venezuelans who have left the country physically but not spiritually, I feel like that colorful ball adrift in an uncertain tide (the one Henry painted) drifting between calm and turbulence, not knowing whether we’re being carried away from or toward the shore…
Larry Henry co-founded Red Seed Studios with his partner, artist and cultural promoter Ivonne Almanza. During the evening, they introduced this new art space in Sarasota to the audience, where they offer workshops, events, and activities for both artists and the community.
Reading my work in public for the first time since arriving in the United States (nearly six months ago) was incredibly rewarding. Knowing that our words can still be heard, even in the midst of the storm, is a balm as we sail through that sea which, as Paul Valéry wrote, is “forever beginning again”
Jesús Miguel Soto
the present tense 
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