Alfredo Villaverde Gil’s Al amor de tu lumber wins 30th Fernando Rielo Internacional Prize for Mystical Poetry, to be awarded 7,000 Euros, commemorative medallion, and publication
Honorable mention for Adela Guerrero Collazos (Colombia) for El amor me habita [Love Inhabits Me] and Roberto Méndez Martínez (Cuba) for Cánticos para la luz de otro siglo [Canticles for the Light of Another Century].
The award ceremony will take place today in the Embassy of Spain to the Holy See and will be presided over by Father Federico Lombardi, Director of the Vatican Press Office, and hosted by Ambassador Francisco Vázquez.
Al amor de tu lumbre [To the Love of Your Light] by Alfredo Villaverde Gil (Spain) has been selected for the 30th Fernando Rielo International Prize for Mystical Poetry. The author was chosen from among 12 finalists from 8 countries, from among a total of 208 works submitted by poets from 32 countries.
The Jury, whose task of selecting the winning work was difficult given the high quality of the 12 finalist works, was headed by Dr. Jesús Fernández Hernández, President of the Fernando Rielo Foundation. Other members included Professor Jaime Siles, poet and literary critic; Professor Luigi Borriello, OCD, a specialist in mysticism; Professor Pilar Martín Espíldora of Humboldt University (Berlin), literary critic; Dr. David Murray, literary critic; and Dr. José María López Sevillano, Secretary of the Prize.
According to the Jury’s evaluation, Alfredo Villaverde Gil is a poet who carefully attends to form without being facile, achieving constancy of poetic accent and lyric tone. In the hospital he feels death on his back and seeks God as a child who wants the protection of his father. It is there, in illness, that the "soul groans and the body resists," where the poet acquires a profound awareness of "time without measure" of a heavenly hope that must "be purified of all things." In ten décimas, or ten-line stanzas, he expresses his “fire in love” that only “finds peace” in God. Lovely sonnets, lyric poems, free-verse and haiku follow, expressing his sense of seeking and encounter, of absence and presence. True poetry of light and joy, it is characterized by the presence of interior recollection to "glimpse the light that guides towards God" and "to follow the divine trail in every place and every thought." This recollection leads him to contemplate God in the everyday.
This poet masterfully portrays for us the universe produced in the mystical poem. It expresses order, consciousness of the infinite, the inspiration and intensity of encounter. The path for contemplation is the cross, suffering out of love, which does not exclude intimate joy in everyday events where waiting surpasses the strictures of reason to experience the divine, where quietude comes simply by being in God, and where the poet suffers the sadness of absence.
This year the Jury has granted honorable mention to the Colombian poet Adela Guerrero Collazos for her work El amor me habita [Love Inhabits Me] and the the Cuban poet Roberto Méndez Martínez, author of Cánticos para la luz de otro siglo [Canticles for the Light of Another Century]. Regarding the first, the work includes “brief poems, made of instants, impressions, memories, in which [Guerrero Collazos] weaves the absence-presence of God, always gently suggestive and with great delicacy. This work has the virtue of a great coherency of language, in whose images are noted the touch of encounter and of searching: 'You penetrate where I do not find you / while I seek you / breeze of psalms / approaches / my door.' She sings her union with the Beloved to the accompaniment of the exuberant instruments of nature."
Of Roberto Méndez’ work, the Jury wrote: "These are long poems of a narrative type in which the author elevates to poetry his meditation on various motifs: from the Gospel (prayer in the garden, the call of the angel, transfiguration, resurrection), theology (Trinity, Virgin, shroud), the mystical or religious (Little Flowers of St. Francis, Mantegna’s Lamentation over the Dead Christ, Poor Clares Monastery, St. John of the Cross) and philosophical or cultural (Plotinus, Dante). Here we have a good poet with admirable linguistic handling and extraordinary mastery of image.
The other 9 finalistas were: Aroca Gómez, Francisco (Murcia, Spain): Diario con hambre de vuelo [Diary Hungry for Flight]; Díaz Yepes, Cristian (Venezuela): La noche y el deseo [Night and Desire]; Donel, Phillip (Tauranga, New Zealand): Go with God; Dorel Visan (Cluj-Napoca, Rumania): Salmos [Psalms]; López Sáez, Francisco José (Ciudad Real, Spain): Huésped de tu Resurrección. Nombres para un exilio [Guest of Your Resurrection. Names for Exile]; Madriz Flores, Kathy (Cartago, Costa Rica): En el umbral de tu Palabra [On the Threshhold of Your Word]; Ribadeneira Terán, Juan Carlos (Quito, Ecuador): Barro alado… [Winged Clay…]; Rodríguez Ballester, Manuel (Sevilla, Spain): Esa llama de amor [That Flame of Love]; and Serrano Pedroche, Lucrecio (Albacete, Spain): De rodillas, Señor, ante el Sagrario, o Evangelio de Juan [Kneeling, Lord, before the Tabernacle, or Gospel of John].
Keeping in mind the creator of the Prize, Fernando Rielo, the President of the Prize, Dr. Jesús Fernández Hernández, in his message for this 30th anniversary award ceremony, writes that “This journey towards the great Poetry gives mystical poetry the primacy of all poetry. Far from being reduced to cultural molds, linguistic structures, pseudo-religious attitudes or rational or affective incoherencies, it is poetry par excellence, because all aesthetic, linguistic, cultural and religious values, without exception, find a place and are empowered in it. For this reason, mystical poetry is open, dialogical, prayerful, diaconal, prophetic. It is not at the service of words, of culture, of society, of history, of religion, but rather at the service of the beauty of love which, with its creative power, frees culture from dross, gives peace to society, correctly interprets history, purifies religion.”
This year’s Honorary Committee included the late member of the Royal Academy of the Spanish Language, Valentín García Yebra (of happy memory, who passed away two days ago; we express our most heartfelt condolences to his family); also from the Academy: Gregorio Salvador Caja, Antonio Mingote, Luis María Anson and Bernard Sesé; the Rectors of the Pontifical University of Comillas and the Polytechnic of Madrid; the President of the Association of Spanish Writers and Artists, Juan Van-Halen; Ramón Pernas, writer from Ourense, Spain, and Member of the Pontifical Academy; and the poet Andrés Sánchez Robayna.
More information here.
Honorable mention for Adela Guerrero Collazos (Colombia) for El amor me habita [Love Inhabits Me] and Roberto Méndez Martínez (Cuba) for Cánticos para la luz de otro siglo [Canticles for the Light of Another Century].
The award ceremony will take place today in the Embassy of Spain to the Holy See and will be presided over by Father Federico Lombardi, Director of the Vatican Press Office, and hosted by Ambassador Francisco Vázquez.
Al amor de tu lumbre [To the Love of Your Light] by Alfredo Villaverde Gil (Spain) has been selected for the 30th Fernando Rielo International Prize for Mystical Poetry. The author was chosen from among 12 finalists from 8 countries, from among a total of 208 works submitted by poets from 32 countries.
The Jury, whose task of selecting the winning work was difficult given the high quality of the 12 finalist works, was headed by Dr. Jesús Fernández Hernández, President of the Fernando Rielo Foundation. Other members included Professor Jaime Siles, poet and literary critic; Professor Luigi Borriello, OCD, a specialist in mysticism; Professor Pilar Martín Espíldora of Humboldt University (Berlin), literary critic; Dr. David Murray, literary critic; and Dr. José María López Sevillano, Secretary of the Prize.
According to the Jury’s evaluation, Alfredo Villaverde Gil is a poet who carefully attends to form without being facile, achieving constancy of poetic accent and lyric tone. In the hospital he feels death on his back and seeks God as a child who wants the protection of his father. It is there, in illness, that the "soul groans and the body resists," where the poet acquires a profound awareness of "time without measure" of a heavenly hope that must "be purified of all things." In ten décimas, or ten-line stanzas, he expresses his “fire in love” that only “finds peace” in God. Lovely sonnets, lyric poems, free-verse and haiku follow, expressing his sense of seeking and encounter, of absence and presence. True poetry of light and joy, it is characterized by the presence of interior recollection to "glimpse the light that guides towards God" and "to follow the divine trail in every place and every thought." This recollection leads him to contemplate God in the everyday.
This poet masterfully portrays for us the universe produced in the mystical poem. It expresses order, consciousness of the infinite, the inspiration and intensity of encounter. The path for contemplation is the cross, suffering out of love, which does not exclude intimate joy in everyday events where waiting surpasses the strictures of reason to experience the divine, where quietude comes simply by being in God, and where the poet suffers the sadness of absence.
This year the Jury has granted honorable mention to the Colombian poet Adela Guerrero Collazos for her work El amor me habita [Love Inhabits Me] and the the Cuban poet Roberto Méndez Martínez, author of Cánticos para la luz de otro siglo [Canticles for the Light of Another Century]. Regarding the first, the work includes “brief poems, made of instants, impressions, memories, in which [Guerrero Collazos] weaves the absence-presence of God, always gently suggestive and with great delicacy. This work has the virtue of a great coherency of language, in whose images are noted the touch of encounter and of searching: 'You penetrate where I do not find you / while I seek you / breeze of psalms / approaches / my door.' She sings her union with the Beloved to the accompaniment of the exuberant instruments of nature."
Of Roberto Méndez’ work, the Jury wrote: "These are long poems of a narrative type in which the author elevates to poetry his meditation on various motifs: from the Gospel (prayer in the garden, the call of the angel, transfiguration, resurrection), theology (Trinity, Virgin, shroud), the mystical or religious (Little Flowers of St. Francis, Mantegna’s Lamentation over the Dead Christ, Poor Clares Monastery, St. John of the Cross) and philosophical or cultural (Plotinus, Dante). Here we have a good poet with admirable linguistic handling and extraordinary mastery of image.
The other 9 finalistas were: Aroca Gómez, Francisco (Murcia, Spain): Diario con hambre de vuelo [Diary Hungry for Flight]; Díaz Yepes, Cristian (Venezuela): La noche y el deseo [Night and Desire]; Donel, Phillip (Tauranga, New Zealand): Go with God; Dorel Visan (Cluj-Napoca, Rumania): Salmos [Psalms]; López Sáez, Francisco José (Ciudad Real, Spain): Huésped de tu Resurrección. Nombres para un exilio [Guest of Your Resurrection. Names for Exile]; Madriz Flores, Kathy (Cartago, Costa Rica): En el umbral de tu Palabra [On the Threshhold of Your Word]; Ribadeneira Terán, Juan Carlos (Quito, Ecuador): Barro alado… [Winged Clay…]; Rodríguez Ballester, Manuel (Sevilla, Spain): Esa llama de amor [That Flame of Love]; and Serrano Pedroche, Lucrecio (Albacete, Spain): De rodillas, Señor, ante el Sagrario, o Evangelio de Juan [Kneeling, Lord, before the Tabernacle, or Gospel of John].
Keeping in mind the creator of the Prize, Fernando Rielo, the President of the Prize, Dr. Jesús Fernández Hernández, in his message for this 30th anniversary award ceremony, writes that “This journey towards the great Poetry gives mystical poetry the primacy of all poetry. Far from being reduced to cultural molds, linguistic structures, pseudo-religious attitudes or rational or affective incoherencies, it is poetry par excellence, because all aesthetic, linguistic, cultural and religious values, without exception, find a place and are empowered in it. For this reason, mystical poetry is open, dialogical, prayerful, diaconal, prophetic. It is not at the service of words, of culture, of society, of history, of religion, but rather at the service of the beauty of love which, with its creative power, frees culture from dross, gives peace to society, correctly interprets history, purifies religion.”
This year’s Honorary Committee included the late member of the Royal Academy of the Spanish Language, Valentín García Yebra (of happy memory, who passed away two days ago; we express our most heartfelt condolences to his family); also from the Academy: Gregorio Salvador Caja, Antonio Mingote, Luis María Anson and Bernard Sesé; the Rectors of the Pontifical University of Comillas and the Polytechnic of Madrid; the President of the Association of Spanish Writers and Artists, Juan Van-Halen; Ramón Pernas, writer from Ourense, Spain, and Member of the Pontifical Academy; and the poet Andrés Sánchez Robayna.
More information here.
