"The Great Poem of No One" is a poetry workshop that transforms discarded words into collective verse, blending literature with urban life. Participants gather words and images from trash, composing a communal poem that takes shape as a banner, inscribed within the cityscape. This act is more than just literary creation—it is an interaction between the participants, the public, and the urban environment, where found language and spontaneous dialogue merge.
In September 2011, this workshop was held in Cairo, Egypt, in collaboration with the Coptic community, many of whom survive by recycling the city's waste. The Zabbaleen—or "garbage people"—have long sustained their livelihoods through waste collection, particularly in the Muqattam Hills on the outskirts of Cairo. This iteration of The Great Poem of No One became both a poetic and social intervention, weaving together voices, images, and the lived realities of those who work within Cairo’s recycling ecosystem. Accompanied by photographic and video documentation, the project not only highlighted the materiality of language but also gave space to the voices often left unheard in the city's margins.
The project is part of the subthemes Re-imagining identity through poetry, Cultural Resilience - Literature as a force for social justice.
Author
Dionisio Cañas
DIONISIO CAÑAS: was born in Tomelloso (Ciudad Real) in 1949. He lived in France for nine years and resided in New York from the end of 1972 until 2005, now he lives in La Mancha. He was a professor at Yale University and professor at the City University of New York. A poet-artist and literary and art critic, his most notable books of poetry are: The End of Happy Races (1981), The Great Criminal (1997), Heart of a Dog (2002), In Case of Fire (2005), Videopoems 2002-2006 (book-dvd, 2007), And He Began Not to Speak (2008), Place. Antología y nuevos poemas (2010), Los libros suicidas. Arabian horizon (2015). The night of Europe (2017). He has also published several books of essays: Poesía y percepción (1984), Tomelloso en la frontera del miedo (1991), El poeta y la ciudad (1994), Memorias de un mirón: voyeurismo y sociedad (2002) and Posibilidades de la poesía (2008), Un viaje hacia El País Invisible: sufismo, erotismo y la búsqueda del Yo (2018).
