Jorge Gaitán Durán.

Jorge Gaitán Durán

He was a Colombian critic and poet born in February the 12^th in 1924 in Pamplona, Norte de Santander, Colombia and he died in Jun the 21^st in 1962 in Guadalupe, France. One of the most important cultural magazine in Colombia was founded by Gaitán, ‘La Revista Cultural Mito’ in 1955. He belonged to the most famous poets better known as “Cuadernículas”. His poems were marked especially by eroticism not just for pleasure and parties but for Thanatic spaces.

Famous works:

Insistencia en la tristeza (1946): (Persistence in sadness)

Presencia del hombre (1947): (Man’s precense)

Ausencia (1949): (Absence)

Amantes (1959): (Lovers)

Quiero

Jorge Gaitán Durán.

Quiero vivir los nombres

Que el incendio del mundo ha dado
Al cuerpo que los mortales se disputan:
Roca, joya del ser, memoria, fasto.
Quiero tocar las palabras
Con que en vano intenté hurtarte
Al duelo de cada día,
Estela donde habitaban los dioses,
Hoy lisa, espacio para el gesto imposible
Que en el mármol fije el alma que nos falta.
No quiero morir sin antes
Haberte impuesto como una ciudad entre los hombres,
Quiero que seas ante la muerte
El único poema que se escriba en la tierra.

I wish (Translation) 

By Jorge Gaitán Durán.

I wish to feel all the names,

Given by the fire of the world

To the body which all mortals are fighting for

Stone, jewel of the being, memory, pomp.

I wish to touch the words

Which in vane I tried to pilfer from you

To the duel of each day

Trail where Gods used to live,

Now plain, free for the impossible gesture

That, on marble sets the missing soul

I do not wish to die before

Having put you as a city among all the men

I wish you to be in face of death

The only poem written on the Earth.