Juan David Latorre
The verses of the Sonatina by Nicaraguan poet and diplomat Rubén Darío (The princess is sad… What’s wrong with the princess? Sighs escape from her strawberry mouth) were heard last Monday in a tribute organised by the Nicaraguan Embassy entitled Rubén Darío Vive, in commemoration of the 107th anniversary of the death of the poet most representative of Modernism.
The event was held in the Jorge Cavodeassi hall of the Organisation of Ibero-American States for Education, Science and Culture (OEI), and was attended by the Deputy Secretary General, Andrés Delich, who said: “Rubén Darío is not only a Nicaraguan figure, he is a figure of the whole region, a tireless traveller who knew our region well, he lived in various Latin American countries”. After highlighting his time in Argentina and his influence on the letters and writers of that country after him, Delich emphasised the Modernist poet’s time in Spain and his links with the Spanish intellectual world, which gave his ideas even greater breadth. “This, he said, makes him a figure with characteristics that go beyond Ibero-America, that have universal content”.
The new Nicaraguan ambassador, Maurizio Gelli, had to be absent from the commemorative event for reasons beyond his control, but he wrote a message to those attending the event, which was read out by the Embassy’s Chargé d’Affaires a.i., Javier Munguía. “Rubén Darío, said the Nicaraguan ambassador, was the founder of literary Modernism, a movement that takes pleasure in aesthetic poetry, full of musicality and themes inspired by refined and elegant atmospheres. But he was also a poet with an unusual ability to interpret his social environment and the human condition. Undoubtedly, a visionary in his time”.
Youth, divine treasure, you are leaving, never to return. When I want to cry I don’t cry, and sometimes I cry without wanting to. Maurizio Gelli recalled these verses by the poet, and ended his message by stating that “Rubén Darío travelled from America to Europe with beauty and freedom as his banner, a sensitive and spiritual, triumphant and melancholic, pagan and Christian banner of poetry. Rubén arrived like a stream of light to return to Castilian the primordial freedom of the word; to the defeated soul, triumphant beauty; to the harsh reality, poetic reality; to the arid panorama well reflected in Castile, the unbending blue humidity of the sea, of the Mediterranean Sea”.
The event ended with a musical recital of several poems by Rubén Darío performed by the playwright Charles Delgadillo and members of his company, who delighted the audience with the poetry of the famous Nicaraguan poet.
