From the 23rd to the 29th of this past April, as part of the World Book and Copyright Day, the hallways and platforms of the Mexico City metro reverberated with the verses of more than 40 Hispanic poets. Dubbed “The Sound of Words,” the project, using texts from the likes of Octavio Paz, Federico Garcia Lorca, Pablo Neruda and Gabriel Garcia Marquez, aimed to promote great works of literature in a country where 7% of the population is illiterate. For more than a week, 4 million daily users of the Mexican capital’s transport network could hear 30 to 80 second sound clips from the archives of the Fonoteca Nacional who loaned put simply, the original voices of great poets and writers. According to Samuel Ayala, the director of the Mexico City transit system, as quoted on lemonde.fr, “it was a successful gamble, in which the public was very receptive“. A similar project should follow, but this time incorporating video.

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