SI TUS OJOS FUERAN LUCEROS – Anónimo Si tus ojos fueran luceros, y tus labios el mar, qué paisaje tan bonito para poder admirar. IF YOUR EYES WERE BRIGHT STARS – If your eyes were bright stars, and your lips the sea, how nice to admire the landscape. UNA FLOR EN EL CAMINO – Amado Nervo La muerta resucita cuando …
Read More »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. …
Read More »PARAGUAYAN POETRY – Herib Campos Cervera
All of the scholars on Paraguayan literature, say that his work is the starting point of a new poetic conception. His poetry, retains the imprint of exile and political persecution. Europeans arrived in Paraguay in the sixteenth century, and the first residential settlement was the foundation of the city of Asunción. Herib Camposs Cervera was born in Asunción, Paraguay, on …
Read More »SPANISH LOVE POETRY
AMOR – Juan Ramón Jiménez El amor, ¿a qué huele? Parece, cuando se ama, que el mundo entero tiene rumor de primavera. Las hojas secas tornan y las ramas con nieve, y él sigue ardiente y joven, oliendo a la rosa eterna. Por todas partes abre guirnaldas invisibles, todos sus fondos son líricos -risa o pena, la mujer a su …
Read More »WHEN IN FRENCH POETRY SPEAKS
THE LANDSCAPE – By Robert Desnos I had dreamt of loving. I go on loving but love is no longer that bouquet of lilacs and roses, charging the forest with their fragrance where a flame rests at the end of branchless pathways. I had dreamt of loving. I go on loving but love is no longer that storm whose lightning …
Read More »DELICATE SHADES OF CHILEAN POETRY – Gabriela Mistral
The love poems in memory of the dead, Sonetos de la muerte (1914), made her known throughout Latin America, but her first great collection of poems, Despair, was not published until 1922. Gabriela Mistral played an important role in the educational systems of Mexico and Chile, was active in cultural committees of the League of Nations, and was Chilean consul …
Read More »PERUVIAN SHADES OF POETRY – Blanca Varela
Her mother was a composer who authored many famous creole waltzes. She, Blanca Varela, was born in Lima in a 1926 Summer day. In 1949 they travelled to Paris where she met Octavio Paz, a key figure in her life, who introduced her to the artists and intellectuals there. Octavio Paz (the Mexican Nobel Laureate), praised her poetry and identified …
Read More »SHADES OF BRAZILIAN POETRY – Armando Freitas Filho
His work reads through the urban imperatives of human landscapes in the city. He has twice been awarded the Jabuti Prize, one of the greatest literary honours in Brazil (firstly in 1986, and later in 2010). He was born in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil in 1940. Follower of the modernist poetic tradition (but also strongly influenced by the works of …
Read More »HOPING – Poetry, by Mario Benedetti
Before dying, he dictated to his personal secretary, Ariel Silva what would become his last poem. In the Spanish-speaking world he was considered one of Latin America’s most important writers from the latter half of the 20th-century. At age four the boy was taken to Montevideo, where he received a superior education at a private school. Mario Benedetti was born …
Read More »CLASSIC CHINESE POEMS – Li Shangyin
Chinese critics prefer to interpret Li Shangyin’s love poetry as allegory. Li Shangyin, is the love poet par excellence in the Chinese tradition. His poems set a trend for later Chinese love poetry. He was born into the lower aristocracy but lost his father, a low-ranking official, when he was 10 years old. Much of his love poetry has a …
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