Federico Díaz-Granados was 20 years old when he published his first collection of poems, “Las voces del fuego”. It was the year 1995 and the boy had a literary baggage nurtured by his father, the also poet Samario José Luis Díaz-Granados, and his cousin Gabriel García Márquez, Nobel Prize for Literature.
Almost 30 years have passed since that first publication and Federico still carries poetry in his bowels. “It’s a way of feeling connected to the generations of my father, my sister and my son,” says the author of “La casa del viento” (2000), “Album de los adioses” (2006), “The last night of the world (2007)”, among other literary works that show that his life is a poem.
The writer is director of the cultural agenda of the Gimnasio Moderno, director of the Literary Gathering and national prize for Unpublished Poetry. “My great satisfaction has been being able to express my emotions, concerns and reflections on the world and life, through the language of poetry. It’s been almost three decades of being in the game, without a doubt, poetry is one of the great voices of friendship, literature has left me the most endearing friends. Poetry is the absolute reason for my life”, confesses Federico, who, in addition to books, has two “loves” that have been with him since he was a child: the “Star Wars” saga and visiting the graves of poets around the world.
“With the saga it was because my father and an uncle took me one day to see the first of the films, which is known as episode 4, and from that moment I was fascinated with that world. Practically my childhood was spent between books, writers, soccer, pop culture icons and television from the 80s, which at that time was marked by the presence of ‘Star wars’”.
Tribute
On the side of the graves, he says that it is a tribute that he pays to great poets on their deathbeds.
“It is a hobby that I have as a traveler. Whenever I visit a city, whether for work or tourism, I like to put together a kind of literary map of what I see, of the authors I’ve wanted to meet and a fundamental part of it is visiting the graves, because for me it’s a small tribute to the poets, writers, artists who have marked me in life. It is an act of gratitude ”, he refers.
“It is a solitary fruit fallen on the unknown shore of silence, like a shooting star shining in its splendor at noon, lost from its orbit, from its night, from its stellar home, invented by light among death: Poetry”, reads one of his emotional poems, entitled “La poesía”, which reveals his complicity with the word, the echo of his lineage and the fascination with prose.
His poetic work has been published in various countries and translated into languages such as English and Italian, as well as a dozen books published as author or co-author. Federico Díaz-Granados is undoubtedly one of the most important voices in Colombian literature today.
Celebration
World Poetry Day is celebrated every March 21, the date on which one of the most precious forms of expression and identity and linguistics of humanity is commemorated. And Colombia pays tribute to all those who speak of their feelings, emotions and ideas through emotional verses. The country has great poets who have known how to represent it, such as Juan Gustavo Cobo, Carlos Castro Saavedra, Eduardo Carranza, Fernando Charry Lara, María Mercedes Carranza, Giovanni Quessep, Meira Delmar, Gonzalo Márquez, Piedad Bonnett and Federico Díaz-Granados, among others. .
“Writers like María Mercedes Carranza and Mario Rivero and others have been present on my literary path, they led me to the gathering and in some way they led me so that Gloria Luz Gutiérrez and I could build something very beautiful. Not only has a space for meeting and conversation around literature been created, but we have been able to create the National Poetry Award, aimed at first works, which reaches its tenth version”, the writer highlights.
The Literary Gathering is a meeting space for great writers from Colombia and other parts of the world. According to Federico, this circle has made it possible to spread Colombian culture abroad.
Is poetry disappearing? It is a question that wanders in the minds of some people, but the genre prevails in schools, libraries and writers, who see in it the romanticism of literature.
“The verses are the ones that in some way give names to the emotions, since the human being is there they will exist, because the emotions will always be there. Sure, we are currently in a competitive world, full of social networks; There are even people who say that the units of the careers should be suppressed and it turns out that poetry, music, the arts and the cinema will always be giving place to emotions and that is why they continue to be valid. Poetry will never disappear, because we see young people express themselves on social networks, they feel the need to return to poetry, to read, to pronounce those poems, I believe that poetry is the axis of literature and that all genres are born of the mind”, highlights the poet, who is currently writing a book on memory.
His letters
Federico Díaz-Granados is a poet, journalist, literature professor, and cultural manager. He has published the collections of poems “Las voces del fuego” (1995) and “La casa del viento” (2000). Anthologies of his work “Álbum de los adioses” (2006), “La última noche del mundo” (2007) and “Las horas olvidadas” (2010) have appeared, and he has prepared anthologies of new Colombian poetry “Dark is the song of the rain” (1997), “Inventory against the light” (2001), “Twelve young poets from Colombia” (1970-1981) and “Anthology of contemporary poetry Mexico-Colombia” (2011). He is one of the poets included in “Poetry in the face of uncertainty. New poets in Spanish” (2011). His essays on his literature are collected in “Poetry as a talisman” (2012).