Yolanda Blanco (born in 1954) is a

Nicaraguan Nicaragua (; ), officially the Republic of Nicaragua (), is the largest country in Central America, bordered by Honduras to the north, the Caribbean to the east, Costa Rica to the south, and the Pacific Ocean to the west. Managua is the countr ...

poet.

Life

Yolanda Blanco was born in

Managua ) , settlement_type = Capital city , motto = , image_map = , mapsize = , map_caption = , pushpin_map = Nicara ...

, Nicaragua. She attended the

Universidad Nacional Autónoma de Nicaragua The National Autonomous University of Nicaragua ( es, link=no, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de Nicaragua, UNAN) is the main state-funded public university of Nicaragua. Its main campus is located in Managua. The original campus, National Auton ...

, in León, between 1970 and 1971. While studying at the university, she organized the first poetry lectures ever, featuring the top Nicaraguan women poets. Blanco went on to study art history and literature in France. During the Seventies, she worked for the creation of a new society in Nicaragua. However, in 1978, she was forced to move to Venezuela when her family's home was unjustifiably invaded by Sandinista officials. Although she was a well known young Nicaraguan poet during the Eighties, Blanco was not paraded by the Sandinista regime because she did not belong to its party. Blanco graduated with a degree in

Literature Literature is any collection of written work, but it is also used more narrowly for writings specifically considered to be an art form, especially prose fiction, drama, and poetry. In recent centuries, the definition has expanded to include ...

from the Universidad Central de

Venezuela Venezuela (; ), officially the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela ( es, link=no, República Bolivariana de Venezuela), is a country on the northern coast of South America, consisting of a continental landmass and many islands and islets in th ...

. She was a member of "Calicanto", a literary workshop conducted by Venezuelan writer

Antonia Palacios Antonia Palacios (13 May 1904 – 2001) was a Venezuelan poet, novelist and essayist. She won the National Prize for Literature in 1976 and the Municipal Prize for Literature in 1982. Along with Miguel Otero Silva, Pablo Rojas Guardia, Luis Castro ...

, and participated actively in the Venezuelan literary world. In 2005, Blanco won the Mariana Sansón Argüello National Poetry Award—a literary contest organized yearly by the Nicaraguan Association of Women Writers (ANIDE)—for her book ''De lo urbano y lo sagrado''. Blanco currently lives in New York City where she works as a translator and practices

Taoist Taoism (, ) or Daoism () refers to either a school of philosophical thought (道家; ''daojia'') or to a religion (道教; ''daojiao''), both of which share ideas and concepts of Chinese origin and emphasize living in harmony with the ''Tao'' ...

arts.

Published work

*''Así cuando la lluvia''. Leon, Nicaragua: Editorial Hospicio, 1974 *''Cerámica sol''. León, Nicaragua: Editorial UNAN, 1977 *''Penqueo en Nicaragua''. Managua, Nicaragua: Editorial Unión, 1981 *''Aposentos''. Caracas, Venezuela: Pen Club de Venezuela, 1985 *''De lo urbano y lo sagrado''. Managua, Nicaragua: Ediciones ANIDE, 2005

Themes

Yolanda Blanco's poetic writing reveals a route of intimate spaces that intensify the experience of the female apprehension of reality, of Nature, and of language through the articulation of a discourse coinciding with the

feminist Feminism is a range of socio-political movements and ideologies that aim to define and establish the political, economic, personal, and social equality of the sexes. Feminism incorporates the position that society prioritizes the male po ...

postulates of the difference. Her poems also represent a testimony of the revolutionary fight that culminated with the triumph of the

Sandinista National Liberation Front The Sandinista National Liberation Front ( es, Frente Sandinista de Liberación Nacional, FSLN) is a Socialism, socialist political party in Nicaragua. Its members are called Sandinistas () in both English and Spanish. The party is named after ...

(FSLN) in Nicaragua. The focus of her first collection, ''Así cuando la lluvia'', falls on the months of May and June, considered the months of the rain and of the tree. The poet affirms the creative power of the rain identified with that of the woman and welcomes it with affection and happiness. The water brightens up the colors and dissipates monotony. It also creates a bucolic vision in which time is only present and the woman is actualized in love and in memories establishing the foundation of her existence. The woman asserts her pride of being and her common nature with the tree through the sensuality of the touch and the

erotism Erotica is literature or art that deals substantively with subject matter that is erotic, sexually stimulating or sexually arousing. Some critics regard pornography as a type of erotica, but many consider it to be different. Erotic art may use ...

of the body. In ''Cerámica sol'', Blanco tries to rescue the power of the primeval word, the language rooted in the symbol and in rites. The poet becomes the sun's priestess to extol its meaning in the human life, in the humbleness of the harvests and fruits, in the activity of the bees, in love, in the chant ... The perfect conciliation of all these elements is attained in the fertile embrace of

Nature Nature, in the broadest sense, is the physics, physical world or universe. "Nature" can refer to the phenomenon, phenomena of the physical world, and also to life in general. The study of nature is a large, if not the only, part of science. ...

. ''Penqueo en Nicaragua'' was written during the revolutionary fight of the Nicaraguan people that put an end to the regime of Anastasio Somoza. It constitutes the testimony of a call for action against injustice and a chant for the hope of liberation. With an enormous emotive force, the poet depicts the heroism and courage of the

indigenous Indigenous may refer to: *Indigenous peoples *Indigenous (ecology), presence in a region as the result of only natural processes, with no human intervention *Indigenous (band), an American blues-rock band *Indigenous (horse), a Hong Kong racehorse ...

neighborhood of Monimbó that led the vanguard in the war against the Sower of the Flowers of Evil. The transformation of peace, work, music, and dance into shrapnel, bombs, destruction, and death originated the uprising against the Somocista army. Blanco remembers the dead Sandinista guerrilla fighters and the faith in the cause for Nicaragua. Pain, hope, guns, and guitars alternate in the poet's affirmation of having been "impregnated" by the love for the Revolution. The colors of

Sandinismo Sandinista ideology or Sandinismo is a series of political and economic philosophies instituted by the Nicaraguan Sandinista National Liberation Front throughout the late twentieth century. The ideology and movement acquired its name, image a ...

, black and red, appear in most of the poems to verbalize the conflict generated by oppression and

liberty Liberty is the ability to do as one pleases, or a right or immunity enjoyed by prescription or by grant (i.e. privilege). It is a synonym for the word freedom. In modern politics, liberty is understood as the state of being free within society fr ...

. The denouncement of atrocities, the imprisonments for insurgency, the voices of witnesses, the poverty, orphanhood, mutilation, hunger, and affliction create a multiple cry for solidarity in the fight guided by the motto "Free Country or Death." In ''Aposentos'', Blanco's awareness of being a woman is the dominant theme. Using a subversive

language Language is a structured system of communication. The structure of a language is its grammar and the free components are its vocabulary. Languages are the primary means by which humans communicate, and may be conveyed through a variety of met ...

that praises sensuality and sexuality, the poet glorifies each part of the female body. Her objective is to inaugurate a new sociological and cultural space confronting the prevalent stereotypes that limit female expression. The identification of woman and Nature emerges continuously in Blanco's poems to communicate their essential creative commonality. It becomes a double discursive axis of denouncement: the subordinated role of

women A woman is an adult female human. Prior to adulthood, a female human is referred to as a girl (a female child or Adolescence, adolescent). The plural ''women'' is sometimes used in certain phrases such as "women's rights" to denote female hum ...

in society, and the generalized repression of their emotions, their experience of love, and writing. Blanco's poetry deviates from the patriarchal tradition and vindicates the validity of a female discourse, the synthesis of a personal and historical process. ''De lo urbano y lo sagrado'' is a mixture of themes. On the one hand, there is nature again; there is the everyday, which the poet considers sacred; and there is also the city, the ultimate city, New York. Blanco transforms herself into a series of Nicaraguan poets:

Rubén Darío Félix Rubén García Sarmiento (January 18, 1867 – February 6, 1916), known as Rubén Darío ( , ), was a Nicaraguan poet who initiated the Spanish-language literary movement known as ''modernismo'' (modernism) that flourished at the end of ...

Salomón de la Selva Salomón de la Selva (March 20, 1893 – February 5, 1959) was a Nicaraguan poet and honorary member of the Mexican Academy of Language. Biography Salomón de la Selva was born on March 20, 1893, in León, Nicaragua, son of Salomón Selva Glenton ...

José Coronel Urtecho José Coronel Urtecho (28 February 1906 – 19 March 1994) was a Nicaraguan poet, translator, essayist, critic, narrator, playwright, diplomat and historian. He has been described as "the most influential Nicaraguan thinker of the twentieth centu ...

, and

Ernesto Cardenal Ernesto Cardenal Martínez (20 January 1925 – 1 March 2020) was a Nicaraguan Catholic priest, poet, and politician. He was a liberation theologian and the founder of the primitivist art community in the Solentiname Islands, where he lived for m ...

to portray the 20th century, together with her own time, her country, and her tradition.Valle-Castillo, Julio, ed. "El siglo de la poesía en Nicaragua". Managua, Nicaragua: Colección Cultural de Centro América Serie Literaria No. 15. 2005

References

External links

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Asociación nicaragüense de escritoras (ANIDE)
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Yolanda Blanco dice sus poemas en "Palabra virtual"
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''El siglo de la poesía en Nicaragua II y III''
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Blanco, Yolanda Nicaraguan feminists Nicaraguan women activists 20th-century Nicaraguan poets Feminist writers 1954 births Living people People from Managua Writers from New York City 20th-century Nicaraguan women writers 21st-century Nicaraguan women writers 21st-century Nicaraguan poets Nicaraguan emigrants to the United States Nicaraguan translators Nicaraguan women poets 20th-century translators 21st-century translators National Autonomous University of Nicaragua alumni

Life

Published work

Themes

Further reading

References

External links