From language to AI, poets discuss its impact on the art

By Leah Pou

From multilingual poetry to how the increasing use of artificial intelligence (AI) is negatively impacting the art, no topic was off limits during the Poetry Panel, held in The John Mackintosh Hall as part of this year’s Gibunco Gibraltar Literary Festival.

The panel was comprised of four poets, Tassos Pagiaslis, Giordano Durante, Tessa Rosado Standen and Trino Cruz, and each brought a different perspective to the world of poetry, sharing their insights into its role in today’s modern world, what they believe the future holds and language and translation.

Throughout the panel discussion, there were also recitals from some of Gibraltar’s best poets, Jackie Anderson, Jonathan Teuma and Levi Attias.

The conversation started with a discussion about how the panel sees poetry being produced in Gibraltar.

Giordano spoke about there has been an “outpouring of poetry” which he partly puts down to social media, how book printing has become increasingly cheaper and more and more events taking place in Gibraltar such as those in El Kasbah and the Musicians Association of Gibraltar.

There are new and exciting opportunities for poets in Gibraltar and "once people start seeing these opportunities, they start losing inhibitions”.

The topic of multilingual poetry was discussed through the panel and how this links to identity and more specifically Gibraltarian identity.

Giordano is the co-founder of Patuka Press which shares Gibraltarian perspectives and he spoke about how he receives pieces in English, Spanish and Llanito, which shows what it means to be Gibraltarian.

Tessa also touched upon this, adding that in a place like Gibraltar people are “constantly navigating identities”.

This idea of Gibraltarian identity was further explored in relation to the use of different languages in Gibraltar and the translation of poetry.

Trino said: “Translation is just another channel of creativity which compliments the others.”

Gibraltarian poetry and the different forms of language it is expressed in was on display with the recitals that night.

There was poetry in Spanish, English and Llanito that led to discussions on Llanito which was described as being “much messier” and a "language of the streets”.

Which language a poet uses to express themselves can go a long way in how the poem is perceived by others. This was discussed during the panel where it was said that “language shapes everything in terms of human perception”.

One theme that was brought up a lot throughout the panel was that of AI.

Tassos spoke in great detail about AI, the impact it has already had on creatives and the possibilities of where things could go in the next five to 10 years as AI continues to develop.

People are struggling to tell the difference between poetry which is written by a human and AI.

He said this is damaging to the creatives who use poetry as an “expression of raw emotion”.

There is no telling how AI will shape poetry and the arts; however, the panel agrees poetry will continue to “serve as a tool to unravel the world we are confronting”.