Flying Poems

The poets Ajo and Benjamín Prado are in charge of kicking off La noche en blanco with tens of thousands of balloons on which hundreds of their verses are written. A small gesture that will fill Madrid's skies with poetry by two very different authors who have one thing in common ­they know how to condense large doses of sensibility in small phrases. For example: "Many believe that this is only the first part, though of what no one quite knows,"(Benjamín Prado) or "I'm sorry I asked you for pears, I didn't know you were an elm" (Ajo). The residents of Madrid will be able to take these poetic helium balloons home as souvenirs.

For over a decade, Benjamín Prado has been a central figure of Madrid's literary scene. In the late 1980s he wrote the lyrics for the song Cuando aprieta el frío for Joaquín Sabina, another giant of the Spanish music and literary universe, and in 1991 he published his first volume of poetry entitled El corazón azul del alumbrado. Since then, he has published over 16 works, including poetry collections, novels and essays; he has received the Andalusia Novel Award and the Ortega y Gasset Humanities Award, and he regularly writes articles for the newspaper El País.

Ajo is undoubtedly one of the key figures of Madrid's counterculture. Born and raised on the tiny stages of the city's underground movement, Ajo is multifaceted, ironic, tender and yet, as her name ("garlic") indicates, has a strong flavor. Although she has published only two books, her mini-poems have broken through every barrier and been embraced by a wide variety of audiences. In recent years, she has trod the boards across Spain with her show Striptease cardiovascular, accompanied by musicians like Mastretta. Ajo is also the fairy godmother of the experimental music and poetry scene in Madrid, having first organized the Experimentaclub festival and, currently, Yuxtaposiciones at La Casa Encendida.