Elvio Romero
Encyclopedia
Elvio Romero was born in Yegros
, Paraguay
, in 1926. He straddled the decades of the 1940s and 1950s in the history of Paraguayan poetry.
, Josefina Plá
, Augusto Roa Bastos
, who would renovate Paraguayan literature.
He was the most important, brilliant and talented paraguayan poet in the twentieth century. The Brazilian critic Walter Wey wrote in 1951:
in 1947 was forced at the age of twenty to abandon along many others the country that he called “nuestra profunda tierra”. He lived in exile in Argentina, and never forgot his homeland or his people. He returned to Paraguay after General Alfredo Stroessner fell from power, and worked in numerous diplomatic posts, such as in the Paraguayan embassy in Buenos Aires.
He has performed editorial work and gave recitals and conferences in various cultural centres of America
and Europe
.
The great Guatemalan novelist Miguel Ángel Asturias
, Nobel
prize winner in literature in 1967, of the presentation of the book of Romero "El sol bajo las raíces” (1956), leaves a wonderful message about him and his play
Interpret it is his roll, the real is the poetic in America, not the imaginary or fake. That’s why we are left with so much geography dispersed in flowers, rocks, and birds when we read the poems of this great Paraguayan poet. As he sings, the pain of people escapes, the protest, but also hope and faith. But these feelings and thoughts borne in the view becomes lucid and in moments oppressed, are broken by the poet that names them. Braking the charm by naming them is the art of Elvio Romero, the natural charm, which are put in his poems in the accomplishment of other charm, the poetry one, the supernatural. Over nature goes his verse dragging roots of live blood, of vertigo, contrast and metamorphosis. For the poets the formal doesn’t matter much, in which what is said expands and when it expands it creates of the new world its authentic vibration.
Rafael Alberti
, notable exponent of the poetic generation of 27 in the Spanish literature sings to him, in the lightened verses of his poem “Elvio Romero, Paraguayan poet” : “The wings yes, yes, lthe wings,/against the life./Sing, cry the poet/flying between the bullets./ For the signs of the day,/you are pointing as well:/taken clavel/and sword of agony./ almost just born,/strong and mature fire,/you know more about death/maybe more than life./ and your smelly name/smells more than romero,/body full of blood./ The prisoned nation/is holding hurt/without a dream it holds /the unburied soul./ And while it cries/without Light the enemy goes,/freedom with you/will come back singing”.
Gabriela Mistral
, Chilean Nobel prize, writes : Only a few times I felt like the earth was laying like a book .
I shared the fight of my people for their freedom, I lived paying attention to the fight protagonized by the thousands of combatants that cautiously prepared the for coming of the nation. And my singing was forming like this, between vibrant and melancholic exaltations of those lights and shadows that, alternatively, sadden the soul. I don’t know if soon, or late, I understood that I should pick up in my poetry all the states of mood that came from that sadness and revelry. So I opened all windows for all the winds in the world to get in, and that’s how I could collect all the leaves of the decay of a combative fire. All of my feelings, all of them, mixed, and that’s where a gold pigeon came out flying to the warm of my passions and imaginations.
, destiny and poetry” and of “El poeta y sus encrucijadas” (1991), piece by which he won the National Prize of Literature in his first edition.
He collaborated with the newspaper “Ultima Hora”, of Asunción, and various cultural publications in Argentina.
Living in Buenos Aires
, Argentina
, where he performed diplomatic shows in the Cultural Aggregate of the Paraguayan Embassy in Buenos Aires, he died in may of 2004.
Yegros
Yegros is a town in the Caazapá department of Paraguay.- Sources :* – World-Gazetteer.com...
, Paraguay
Paraguay
Paraguay , officially the Republic of Paraguay , is a landlocked country in South America. It is bordered by Argentina to the south and southwest, Brazil to the east and northeast, and Bolivia to the northwest. Paraguay lies on both banks of the Paraguay River, which runs through the center of the...
, in 1926. He straddled the decades of the 1940s and 1950s in the history of Paraguayan poetry.
Childhood and youth
At a very young age he joined the promotion of Hérib Campos CerveraHérib Campos Cervera
Paraguayan poet Hérib Campos Cervera was born in Asunción, Paraguay, on March 30, 1905, son of Spanish parents, Herib Campos Cervera, also a poet, and of Alicia Diaz Perez, sister of the great intellectual Viriato Díaz Pérez.-Childhood and youth:...
, Josefina Plá
Josefina Pla
Josefina Pla was a Spanish poet, playwright, art critic, painter and journalist....
, Augusto Roa Bastos
Augusto Roa Bastos
Augusto Roa Bastos, was a noted Paraguayan novelist and short story writer, and one of the most important Latin American writers of the 20th century. As a teenager he fought in the Chaco War between Paraguay and Bolivia, and he later worked as a journalist, screenwriter and professor...
, who would renovate Paraguayan literature.
He was the most important, brilliant and talented paraguayan poet in the twentieth century. The Brazilian critic Walter Wey wrote in 1951:
“the star of the young poet is manly and strong and his rough and low vibration style helps him for the tragic themes of violent death and hunger…we are sure that his message once mature will show us something amazing.”
Career
A Communist militant, who after the end of Paraguayan Civil WarParaguayan Civil War
The Paraguayan Civil War was a conflict in Paraguay that lasted from March to August 1947.In 1940, President Higinio Morínigo suspended the constitution and banned political parties. Resistance to his rule took the form of general strikes and student riots...
in 1947 was forced at the age of twenty to abandon along many others the country that he called “nuestra profunda tierra”. He lived in exile in Argentina, and never forgot his homeland or his people. He returned to Paraguay after General Alfredo Stroessner fell from power, and worked in numerous diplomatic posts, such as in the Paraguayan embassy in Buenos Aires.
He has performed editorial work and gave recitals and conferences in various cultural centres of America
Americas
The Americas, or America , are lands in the Western hemisphere, also known as the New World. In English, the plural form the Americas is often used to refer to the landmasses of North America and South America with their associated islands and regions, while the singular form America is primarily...
and Europe
Europe
Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...
.
The great Guatemalan novelist Miguel Ángel Asturias
Miguel Ángel Asturias
Miguel Ángel Asturias Rosales was a Nobel Prize–winning Guatemalan poet, novelist, playwright, journalist and diplomat...
, Nobel
Nobel Prize
The Nobel Prizes are annual international awards bestowed by Scandinavian committees in recognition of cultural and scientific advances. The will of the Swedish chemist Alfred Nobel, the inventor of dynamite, established the prizes in 1895...
prize winner in literature in 1967, of the presentation of the book of Romero "El sol bajo las raíces” (1956), leaves a wonderful message about him and his play
“what characterizes Elvio Romero’s poetry is his flavour of earthEarthEarth is the third planet from the Sun, and the densest and fifth-largest of the eight planets in the Solar System. It is also the largest of the Solar System's four terrestrial planets...
, woodWoodWood is a hard, fibrous tissue found in many trees. It has been used for hundreds of thousands of years for both fuel and as a construction material. It is an organic material, a natural composite of cellulose fibers embedded in a matrix of lignin which resists compression...
, waterWaterWater is a chemical substance with the chemical formula H2O. A water molecule contains one oxygen and two hydrogen atoms connected by covalent bonds. Water is a liquid at ambient conditions, but it often co-exists on Earth with its solid state, ice, and gaseous state . Water also exists in a...
and sunSunThe Sun is the star at the center of the Solar System. It is almost perfectly spherical and consists of hot plasma interwoven with magnetic fields...
and the rigor with which he deals with these themes in no way detracts from his ease of verse and the desire to interpret the drama of his country’s joyous nature and sadness of existence as in many of our countries. Few American voices so deep and faithful to the man and his problems, therefore, universal. Invalid poetry, I call this poetry. Invalid poetry for life, for the life’s game and fire. But not the life seen by the European, always lacking compared to our magic and wonderful world but as we see it. Elvio Romero, as all the authentic poets in AméricaAmericasThe Americas, or America , are lands in the Western hemisphere, also known as the New World. In English, the plural form the Americas is often used to refer to the landmasses of North America and South America with their associated islands and regions, while the singular form America is primarily...
, hasn’t got to live in an empty world with his imagination, that world already exists."
Interpret it is his roll, the real is the poetic in America, not the imaginary or fake. That’s why we are left with so much geography dispersed in flowers, rocks, and birds when we read the poems of this great Paraguayan poet. As he sings, the pain of people escapes, the protest, but also hope and faith. But these feelings and thoughts borne in the view becomes lucid and in moments oppressed, are broken by the poet that names them. Braking the charm by naming them is the art of Elvio Romero, the natural charm, which are put in his poems in the accomplishment of other charm, the poetry one, the supernatural. Over nature goes his verse dragging roots of live blood, of vertigo, contrast and metamorphosis. For the poets the formal doesn’t matter much, in which what is said expands and when it expands it creates of the new world its authentic vibration.
Rafael Alberti
Rafael Alberti
Rafael Alberti Merello was a Spanish poet, a member of the Generation of '27....
, notable exponent of the poetic generation of 27 in the Spanish literature sings to him, in the lightened verses of his poem “Elvio Romero, Paraguayan poet” : “The wings yes, yes, lthe wings,/against the life./Sing, cry the poet/flying between the bullets./ For the signs of the day,/you are pointing as well:/taken clavel/and sword of agony./ almost just born,/strong and mature fire,/you know more about death/maybe more than life./ and your smelly name/smells more than romero,/body full of blood./ The prisoned nation/is holding hurt/without a dream it holds /the unburied soul./ And while it cries/without Light the enemy goes,/freedom with you/will come back singing”.
Gabriela Mistral
Gabriela Mistral
Gabriela Mistral was the pseudonym of Lucila de María del Perpetuo Socorro Godoy Alcayaga, a Chilean poet, educator, diplomat, and feminist who was the first Latin American to win the Nobel Prize in Literature, in 1945...
, Chilean Nobel prize, writes : Only a few times I felt like the earth was laying like a book .
Life in exile
Exile, love, and other expressions of live itself, are permanently present in Romero’s piece. Romero say to us: “During the long exile I had to go through, my people, my friends and some strangers too, came to my house, my exile house, bringing the fragrance of the things that are far, recon fronting my retirement.I shared the fight of my people for their freedom, I lived paying attention to the fight protagonized by the thousands of combatants that cautiously prepared the for coming of the nation. And my singing was forming like this, between vibrant and melancholic exaltations of those lights and shadows that, alternatively, sadden the soul. I don’t know if soon, or late, I understood that I should pick up in my poetry all the states of mood that came from that sadness and revelry. So I opened all windows for all the winds in the world to get in, and that’s how I could collect all the leaves of the decay of a combative fire. All of my feelings, all of them, mixed, and that’s where a gold pigeon came out flying to the warm of my passions and imaginations.
Poetic works
| Year | Work |
|---|---|
| 1948 | ”Días roturados” |
| 1950 | ”Resoles áridos” |
| 1953 | ”Despiertan las fogatas” |
| 1956 | ”El sol bajo las raíces” |
| 1961 | ”De cara al corazón” |
| 1961 | ”Esta guitarra dura” |
| 1966 | ”Libro de la migración” |
| 1967 | ”Un relámpago herido” |
| 1970 | ”Los innombrables” |
| 1975 | ”Destierro y atardecer” |
| 1977 | ”El viejo fuego” |
| 1984 | ”Los valles imaginarios” |
| 1994 | ”Flechas en un arco tendido” |
Distinctions
As a reherserer he is the author of “Miguel HernándezMiguel Hernández
Miguel Hernández Gilabert was a 20th century Spanish poet and playwright.-Biography:Hernández was born in Orihuela, in the Valencian Community, to a poor family and received little formal education; he published his first book of poetry at 23, and gained considerable fame before his death...
, destiny and poetry” and of “El poeta y sus encrucijadas” (1991), piece by which he won the National Prize of Literature in his first edition.
He collaborated with the newspaper “Ultima Hora”, of Asunción, and various cultural publications in Argentina.
Living in Buenos Aires
Buenos Aires
Buenos Aires is the capital and largest city of Argentina, and the second-largest metropolitan area in South America, after São Paulo. It is located on the western shore of the estuary of the Río de la Plata, on the southeastern coast of the South American continent...
, Argentina
Argentina
Argentina , officially the Argentine Republic , is the second largest country in South America by land area, after Brazil. It is constituted as a federation of 23 provinces and an autonomous city, Buenos Aires...
, where he performed diplomatic shows in the Cultural Aggregate of the Paraguayan Embassy in Buenos Aires, he died in may of 2004.