colombian love poem
A Sample of Colombian Poetry
Camila Charry Noriega
The following authors, as heterogenous in their language as they are in their artistic missions, belong to various different regions of Colombia, and serve as evidence of the geographical variety over which poetry ranges, always pursuing new goals. The present selection, for this reason, is no more than a brief sample for LALT.
To speak of similarities among this group of poets must relate to the fact that they find in poetry their role, their home, and what unites them as Colombians; besides that, they cannot be grouped under any collective or avant-garde intention. There is no determined aesthetic, only the free use of a common language: Spanish. What’s more, the reader will notice the profound generational difference between the first and the last, another guarantee of a plurality that I consider fundamental. To categorize by generations or specific aesthetics is not only overambitious and restrictive; for me, it is also more arbitrary than choosing based on personal attachment, since, in the end, the motivation behind this sample is not the ungracious distinction between young poets and established poets, but rather their unification under the name “poets,” regardless of their age.
What follows is a work of words, manifested from diverse points of power, that names what passes through us and what contains us.
Translated by Arthur Dixon
“Poetics” by Juan Manuel Roca
“Outdoors” by Amparo Osorio
“Two Days for Lázaro” by Mery Yolanda Sánchez
“Perfect Unreality” by Pedro Arturo Estrada
“Light and Shadow Make Up the House” by María Tabares
“Downpour” by Alejandro Cortés González
“I Make My Way Through the Deserted City” by Lucía Estrada
“Untitled” by Juan Guillermo Sánchez
“The Snack” by Andrea Cote-Botero
“Janis Joplin” by Henry Alexander Gómez
“Eternal” by Margarita Losada Vargas
“They say the last flame” by Tania Ganitsky
“The House” by Jenny Bernal
“From a Distance, You Can Only Ask” by Juan Afanador
