Freddy Niagara Fonseca's Poetry

Poet and impresario Freddy Niagara Fonseca hails from South-America. He has absorbed the histories and cultures of Greece, France, Spain, England, Germany, the Netherlands, Italy, and the United States through his travels; worked in graphic design and banking in Amsterdam; studied voice and Italian and worked in films in Rome, Italy.

He has read extensively in six languages including well over 10,000 poems by authors native to Germany, the Netherlands, Great Britain, France, Italy, Spanish speaking countries, and America, and feels a particular resonance with and a link to American poetry.

As a young adult, he actually disliked poetry. However, while visiting Rome, Italy, he was moved by a pedestal inscription on a statue of Lord Byron in Villa Borghese Park, and wrote his first poem the next day.

Freddy, who is an expressive performer, has publicly recited his poems, reflective of his visits to various exotic locales, in concert with the accompaniment of musicians, numerous times. In 1990, he staged, produced, and participated in a Dance, Rhyme & Rhythm Extravaganza in Fairfield, Iowa, reciting and dancing to his own poetry with a cast of 30 dancers, accompanied on piano. He currently lives in Iowa.

His poems have appeared or will appear in the US, Canada and England in The Dryland Fish--An Anthology of Contemporary Iowa Poets, Tower Poetry Society, The Eclectic Muse, The Neovictorian/Cochlea, Candelabrum Poetry Magazine, The Fairfield Ledger, Pivot, WinningWriters.com, Inquiring Mind and Passive Fists--An Anthology by Poets for Peace, The Iowa Source on line. Two of Freddy’s poems are on permanent display in two public buildings in Fairfield, IA, i.e. at Revelations Bookstore & Cafe and the Fairfield Courthouse.

In December 2004, Freddy created the Candlelight Reading Series in order to generate entertaining poetry readings with inventive programming, aesthetics with true sentiments everyone will recognize on a great variety of themes.

The main focus is on presenting world poetry, classical as well as contemporary and of all cultures, styles and periods. The series regularly invites good readers, poets and performing artists such as musicians, dancers, actors, mime artists, story tellers, song writers, comedians, etc.

Freddy has made it his mission to revitalize the oral poetry traditions by modifying them for modern audiences while opening up the gateways of feeling and meaning fearlessly. This allows many levels of passion in the human spectrum to be accessed. Audiences really enjoy feeling united while being immersed in attention to experiences they all can relate to.

His fondest desire is to bring poetry back to its rightful home, that is in the heart of all people, and truly popularize poetry, using as many imaginative ways as possible.