Article
Welcome to Colombian poetry - May 2005
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January 18, 2006
It is possible to visualize the various poetic regions of the world beyond national borders. There are more likenesses and shared characteristics in poetry coming from the various Arab countries than in poetry coming from, say, China and Britain. A common language brings the poetics near. There is a common interdependence and a common root to poetry. Poetry is one all over the world. “The whole earth is a single soul,” says a song from the aboriginal Araucanians of Chile.
Colombian poetry has not been an exception: in its past it has almost always been subsidiary to European poetry, but paradoxically, at the same time, it has remained isolated by extreme violence, coiled over itself, almost autistic. It has limited itself to a dialogue with its own beloved dead poets. To give an example: in Colombia there is one single national newspaper. This newspaper refuses to publish poetry in its supplements. And the only big publishing house of poetry books that existed in the country, has stopped publishing poetry.
And it happens that many cadavers have been washed down the rivers of Colombian poetry, in particular the dead of the two big eras of the Colombian violence (1948-1957 and 1964-2005). In the last 57 years, Colombia has seen more than 600.000 people dead because of the war. These deaths have silenced three generations of poets. Quite understandably, most Colombian poets have remained silent in order not to get murdered. Therefore, freedom of speech has died. With the voices of those poets, the country has been silenced. And poetry has reached a crisis, since poetry can’t be separated from life.
The International Poetry Festival of Medellin has held up the mirror of world poetry to Colombian poets for almost one decade now, and unintentionally it has deepened this crisis. Colombian poetry has been faced with the reflection of its voluntary silence, of its painful nihilism, of its sterile colloquialism, of its metaphysical solitude (as in the poems of Carlos Obregón, which we present in this issue), faced with its old terrors, but also with the certainty of a vigorous hope. More than 500 poets from 115 nations have read their poems in front of multitudes of youngsters, and they have been heard and read by Colombian poets. In this way Colombian poetry has been enriched, called into question and renovated; it has witnessed the upsurge of a revolution in its own nature. Colombian poetry is above all a young poetry, with some outstanding figures that do us honor and whom we highlight in these pages. We are therefore delighted to be able to present the poems of Piedad Bonnet in this issue.
Without a doubt, poetry will in the years to come be the life of Colombia, or it won’t be anything at all, in this country where genocidal violence and an uncertain future are balanced by the fight for freedom, and the fervent search for a higher destiny, of people that love poetry as life itself. Translated by Raúl Jaime Gaviria
There is no such thing as a strictly Colombian poetry, just like there is no such thing as a strictly French, Moroccan or Hindu poetry. Poetry in the entire world, like genes, is crossed by mutual influences and deep connections shared in the essence of its diversity. One only needs to look at the influence of surrealism in America: Borges’ syncretic poetry, the Latin American poets living in Paris (Silva, Huidobro, Oquendo de Amat, Gangotena), or those poets solidary with the Spanish Republic (Vallejo, Guillén, Neruda, Pellicer), in a deep dialogue with Cernuda, Alberti, Machado, García Lorca, León Felipe and Miguel Hernández.
One can understand it just by observing the shifting of national geographical borders in the not so distant past – where one can see a country invading another for cheap petroleum. It is possible to visualize the various poetic regions of the world beyond national borders. There are more likenesses and shared characteristics in poetry coming from the various Arab countries than in poetry coming from, say, China and Britain. A common language brings the poetics near. There is a common interdependence and a common root to poetry. Poetry is one all over the world. “The whole earth is a single soul,” says a song from the aboriginal Araucanians of Chile.
Colombian poetry has not been an exception: in its past it has almost always been subsidiary to European poetry, but paradoxically, at the same time, it has remained isolated by extreme violence, coiled over itself, almost autistic. It has limited itself to a dialogue with its own beloved dead poets. To give an example: in Colombia there is one single national newspaper. This newspaper refuses to publish poetry in its supplements. And the only big publishing house of poetry books that existed in the country, has stopped publishing poetry.
And it happens that many cadavers have been washed down the rivers of Colombian poetry, in particular the dead of the two big eras of the Colombian violence (1948-1957 and 1964-2005). In the last 57 years, Colombia has seen more than 600.000 people dead because of the war. These deaths have silenced three generations of poets. Quite understandably, most Colombian poets have remained silent in order not to get murdered. Therefore, freedom of speech has died. With the voices of those poets, the country has been silenced. And poetry has reached a crisis, since poetry can’t be separated from life.
The International Poetry Festival of Medellin has held up the mirror of world poetry to Colombian poets for almost one decade now, and unintentionally it has deepened this crisis. Colombian poetry has been faced with the reflection of its voluntary silence, of its painful nihilism, of its sterile colloquialism, of its metaphysical solitude (as in the poems of Carlos Obregón, which we present in this issue), faced with its old terrors, but also with the certainty of a vigorous hope. More than 500 poets from 115 nations have read their poems in front of multitudes of youngsters, and they have been heard and read by Colombian poets. In this way Colombian poetry has been enriched, called into question and renovated; it has witnessed the upsurge of a revolution in its own nature. Colombian poetry is above all a young poetry, with some outstanding figures that do us honor and whom we highlight in these pages. We are therefore delighted to be able to present the poems of Piedad Bonnet in this issue.
Without a doubt, poetry will in the years to come be the life of Colombia, or it won’t be anything at all, in this country where genocidal violence and an uncertain future are balanced by the fight for freedom, and the fervent search for a higher destiny, of people that love poetry as life itself. Translated by Raúl Jaime Gaviria
© Fernando Rendón
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