By Raïs Neza Boneza (Poetas Del Mundo: Festivale de la Parole 2025, 8th to 13th May Montpellier, France)
“The greatest bridges aren’t built of steel—but of words that touch each other’s pain
and bloom into hope.”
The plane landed in Montpellier with a jolt. I clutched my book Where Silence Burns—born between Congo’s rainforests and Norway’s winters—and whispered: “Words, find your home here.”
In Béziers’ vineyards, the air tasted of sun-ripened grapes and untold stories. At Château de Perdiguier, I read “L’Adorateur” as Occitan winds wove through my verses. An old winemaker grasped my hand: “Your homeland’s pain tastes like our terroir: deep and true.” For a moment, poetry and wine became one language.
Then, the prison workshop. Wake Up Café in Montpellier smelled of coffee grounds and buried hopes. Among men with tattooed scars, my voice trembled—until Jean-Luc (12 years behind walls) read: “I was a caged bird / Your words cut the iron sky / Now I fly on poem-wings.” His tears turned ink to liberation. Mine became gratitude.
Pézenas stole my breath. In Molière’s 400-year-old theater, gilded ceilings echoed “Fatima”—my scream against violence. A young mother stood: “That’s my life!” The silence after weighed tons. Walls accustomed to comedies shook beneath truth’s weight.
Rain became grace at Maguelone. When storms chased us into a seaside chapel, votive candles danced as I read “Nandi”—my love song to Lake Tanganyika. Waves hammered the doors like a choir: Africa and Europe embracing in rhythm.
At “Lo Clapàs» was a baptism, I received the “Diplôme d’Honneur” before the farwell. Luis Arias Manzo endorse with emotion in the shadows of chandelier. My speech ended: “Poetry is our only passport—no visas, just open hearts.” The mediterranean sea carried my tropical-fjord soul into the night.
On the flight to Trondheim, I scribbled inside my book’s margins:
“I came to sell poems / But found kin / Whose wounds and joys / Braided into my spirit / We are no longer exiles— / We are dream smiths / Forged by word’s flame.”
The world isn’t fragments anymore. It’s an unwritten poem. And we—all of us—are the ink.
With the support of NORLA(Norwegian Literature Abroad)
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