VENEZUELAN POETRY – Andrés Eloy Blanco

Important Venezuelan poet, member of the “Generation 28”, he was born on August 1, 1896 in Cumana. Andrés Eloy Blanco attended primary school and part of the middle, completing their education in Caracas, graduating from the Central University of Doctor in political and social sciences. From a young age he showed great literary talent, which was recognized in various competitions. As a poet, his compositions had popularity. In 1919 he published his book of poems “The Garden of the Epic”. Inmuerables won awards for his literary works achieving success both within and outside its borders. In 1928, he was among a group of university students who rose up against the dictatorship of General Juan Vicente Gomez. Therefore, between 1928 and 1933, he was in prison. In these books Eloy Blanco employed a treatment of reality he termed as “Columbianism” and derived from a discoverer attitude of the poet in contact with the American reality.

LA ÓRBITA DEL AGUA – Vamos a embarcar, amigos, para el viaje de la gota de agua. Es una gota, apenas, como el ojo de un pájaro. Para nosotros no es sino un punto, una semilla de luz, una semilla da agua, la mitad de lágrima de una sonrisa, pero le cabe el cielo y sería el naufragio de una hormiga. Vamos a seguir, amigos, la órbita de la gota de agua. De la cresta de un ola salta, con el vapor de la mañana. Sube a la costa de una nube insular en el cielo, blanca, como una playa. Viaja hacia el Occidente, llueve en el pico de una montaña, abrillanta las hojas, esmalta los retoños, rueda en una quebrada, se sazona en el jugo de las frutas caídas, brinca en las cataratas, desemboca en el Río, va corriendo hacia el Este, corta en dos la sabana, hace piruetas en los remolinos y en los anchos remansos se dilata, como la pupila de un gato, sigue hacia el Este en la marea baja, llega al mar, a la cresta de su ola y hemos llegado, amigos… Volveremos mañana. WATER’S ORBIT – We will embark, friends, travel drop of water. It’s a drop, just like the eye of a bird. For us it is but a point, a seed of light, a seed gives water, teardrop half a smile, but it fits the sky and would be the wreck of an ant. We will continue, friends, the orbit of the raindrop. From the crest of a wave jumps, with the steam in the morning. Go up to the coast of an island cloud in the sky, white, like a beach. Travel to the West, it rains at the peak of a mountain, brightens the leaves, enameled suckers, wheel in a ravine, season in fruit juice falls, jumps at the falls, flows into the river, he runs to the this, bisects the savannah, pirouettes in the eddies and wide backwaters expands, like the pupil of a cat, then east at low tide, reaches the sea, to the crest of the wave and have come, friends … back tomorrow.