Aurelio Arturo Martínez (1906–1974) was a
Colombian poet, translator, teacher and lawyer. Although his poetic output is limited to seventy-odd poems, he is considered one of the most important Colombian poets of the twentieth century.
He was born in
La Unión in the southern province of
Nariño. He was the first of seven children born to Heriberto Arturo Martínez and Raquel Martínez Caicedo. He studied law at university and pursued literature at the same time. He published poetry under multiple pseudonyms in various newspapers and magazines, for example, ''El Espectador, Golpe de dados, El Tiempo, Eco'' and ''El País''. As early as 1928, his work was published by
German Arciniegas. He became better known in 1931 with the publication of three poems in ''Crónica Literaria'', the Sunday supplement of ''
El País de Cali'', then run by
Rafael Maya
Rafael may refer to:
* Rafael (given name) or Raphael, a name of Hebrew origin
* Rafael, California
* Rafael Advanced Defense Systems, Israeli manufacturer of weapons and military technology
* Hurricane Rafael, a 2012 hurricane
Fiction
* Rafa ...
. The Cronica was known for promoting the work of the
piedracielismo Stone and sky ( es, Piedra y cielo) was a Colombian literary movement that appeared in 1939 and whose name is taken from the title of a 1919 poetry book published by Juan Ramón Jiménez. Members of this literary movement were often called ''piedrac ...
generation, though Arturo wrote in a different mode from the piedracielistas. He was known as a poet with his own style who pursued his own artistic path.
He did count piedracielistas among his friends, such as the Santander poet
Tomás Vargas Osorio
Tomás Vargas Osorio (1908–1941) was a Colombian poet, often associated with the piedracielismo movement. He was born in Oiba, Santander
Santander may refer to:
Places
* Santander, Spain, a port city and capital of the autonomous community o ...
whose death in 1941 affected him badly. That same year Arturo married María Esther Lucio, with whom he had five children. He wrote his supreme work ''Morada al Sur'', first published in 1945 in the Revista Universidad Nacional de Colombia. This was also the title of his only book published in 1963, a short intense collection that consisted of fourteen poems. It won the
Guillermo Valencia National Poetry Prize that same year.
As a lawyer and civil servant, he served in senior positions at various institutions, including the Colombian Embassy in the United States, and the
University of Nariño
The University of Nariño ( es, Universidad de Nariño), also called Udenar, is a public, coeducational, research university based primarily in the city of Pasto, Nariño, Colombia. It is the largest higher education institution by student popul ...
. He founded and directed the literary radio-magazine Voces del Mundo. He suffered a series of health scares in the early 70s, leading to his death in 1974 in Bogotá.
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Arturo, Aurelio
Colombian poets
1906 births
1974 deaths
People from Nariño Department