Ciudadano Tinta is Chus Bernabé, a biology and geology teacher in Gijón. He has also been an active musician since 2000, so his poetry can be heard in the lyrics of more than five albums, some collaborations and many, many live performances all over the country.

Under this pseudonym he started a musical project focused on the lyrics of his songs. The search for formats that would give more wings to these lyrics led him to develop his poetry without musical ties.

A regular on the poetry scene, either as a spectator or participant, he has won the Gijón Poetry Slam 2023, after coming second in 2022. Thanks to this, his first collection of poems, El Reparo Mutuo, will be published this year.

From this apprenticeship comes the desire to contribute new proposals: a format for live poetry that helps to enrich the scene, and his own voice in spoken word whose rhythm is set by dance music such as funk or soul.

This is the next project, and its name is Palabra de Funk (Spoken Funk).

The project “Palabra de Funk” proposes a way of reciting and creating poetry together with different styles of music such as funk or soul.

The Palabra de Funk (Spoken Funk) project arises from asking ourselves what happens to our way of reciting and creating poetry when we do it together with funk, soul, groove music… Rhythms that may transmit dance, or even seem carefree, but over which we work texts that may speak of pain, injustice, or themes that we would not associate with these styles.

Will it change the way our message is conveyed, will it be even better understood, what cadences and inertias will emerge, and how can trying to break them help us to work out new ways of doing poetry?

So the music is a radical part of the project, and so is the DJ’s intervention. The creation is simultaneous, so he will have to improvise, react and break the loop in a continuous conversation between poet and musician. The focus of these modes of recitation must be to make the DJ’s identity as an instrumentalist very clear.

Taking these proposals to the live performance may lead to the appearance of formats that we have not worked with before, or to delve deeper into some of the formats for live poetry. In any case, it can add to the poetry scene.

That’s why the project is born and grows, always leaving a shared space for artists who are interested in the proposal.

Thus, it is a project set within a style, the so-called spoken word, which is in full development, as in recent years very original ideas have been appearing based on its codes. Being part of this collective is not only an opportunity but, perhaps, something like a creative responsibility, as the moment is key to push the limits of the proposal and discover what new approaches can emerge. We believe it is worth enjoying them.

Project selected in the II Call for Artistic Residencies 2023.