2023 Jova Bagioli Reyes

In Summer 2022, Manchester Literature Festival commissioned Jova Bagioli Reyes to create a new poem inspired by protest, resistance, identity and home in their role as a Multilingual City Poet for Manchester UNESCO City of Literature. Jova’s response was the powerful ‘Las calles rescuerdan / The Streets Remember’, written in their mother tongue of Spanish, then translated into English.

Jova performed ‘Las calles rescuerdan / The Streets Remember’ for the first time at a special Manchester Multilingual City Poets showcase at the International Anthony Burgess Foundation on 19 October for the 2022 Manchester Literature Festival. Anjum Malik and Ali Al-Jamri performed alongside Jova and read their own translations of ‘The Streets Remember’ in their mother tongues of Urdu and Arabic.

You can download a PDF of Jova’s poem alongside PDFs of Anjum and Ali’s translations above. You can watch the film of Jova performing the commission below. The film was directed by Ricardo Vilela at Sagitta Media and shot on location across Greater Manchester. You can also watch Spanish, Arabic and Urdu versions of the film.

Jova Bagioli Reyes is a queer, neurodiverse immigrant hailing from Colombia and Chile. Their poetry and music are heavily inspired by the long struggle of Abya Yala (so-called Latin America).

Anjum Malik is an established scriptwriter, poet and performer who has written several acclaimed plays for BBC, ITV and theatre. 

Ali Al-Jamri is a Bahraini British poet, editor and producer. He edited ArabLit Quarterly: FOLK and Between Two Islands: Poetry by Bahrainis in Britain.