5. Sao Paulo

WADE GOODWYN, HOST:

Sao Paulo is one of the biggest cities in the world and one of the economic engines of South America. Its center is known for its fancy malls, posh departments and even helicopter landing pads. The outlying areas where the vast majority of the workforce live are known for poverty and crime, less often for poetry and high culture. NPR’s Lourdes Garcia-Navarro reports on efforts to change that.

LOURDES GARCIA-NAVARRO, BYLINE: Booze and poetry have a long and honorable tradition that goes back millennia. In ancient Greece, poems would be recited at drinking parties. Here in Sao Paulo’s peripheria, or periphery, poetry night is held at a corner bar by necessity, not by choice. And there aren’t any marble columns. Located in a shanty town, when we arrive, the bar is so full that people flow out onto the street and sit under streetlamps smoking and holding small glasses of beer, waiting for the event to begin.

SERGIO VAZ: (Through translator) This is a very poor and needy area. We don’t have public spaces here like a movie theater or museums. The only public space we have is the bar. So we decided to transform the bar into a cultural center. The idea was to occupy space we have. / mehr