Federico Diaz-Granados
Jhonattan Arredondo Grisales gives us the testimony of his lucidity in Las sombras interiores, a collection of poems that investigates those moments of light in closed and dark spaces, not only of life but of the soul itself. That is why he starts from silence and brevity to find the true poetry of the world, because he knows well that from that synthesis the instant and the sublime are captured through the word.
The poet reminds us that “Someone in silence watches us pour the water that always escapes from our hands”, fully aware that there is no safer destination than that of beauty (even if it is full of labyrinths and nooks and crannies) to find calm in a land full of traps, tedium and bustle. This is a book that celebrates the silence that awaits us in the house, behind the doors and windows, and that is present in the hands and gazes that invent the indelible memory of things. There is also the country and reality and winks and tributes to his teachers and friends, because it is also a book of affection and gratitude.
Las sombras interiores invites the reader on a journey through a geography full of absences and presences where the only possible place for astonishment will be poetry.
Who is it
Jhonattan Arredondo Grisales (Cartago, 1990). Poet, narrator and literary researcher. He studied theater and playwriting in different cities of the country. He has a degree in Spanish and Literature from the Technological University of Pereira, a workshop leader at the Library of the Bank of the Republic (Pereira Cultural Center) and a teacher at the Colegio del Sagrado Corazón de Jesús Hermanas Bethlemitas de Pereira. Winner of the National Short Story Contest “Short Stories for Long Waits” 2017. His publications have appeared in different anthologies and in the media such as La Cola de Rata, Literariedad, El Diario, El Espectador, among others. His book Las sombras interiores obtained an Honorable Mention at the XXIV Latin American Poetry Award for the Ciro Mendía contest.
Invocation
You open your hands in the middle of the night.
Just the shadow of your shadow
it pours indecipherable where you try to grasp the light.
invisible, far away,
their music is hidden in the glow of the gardens.
just touch a flower
to feel his voice murmuring in your ears.
fisherman’s soliloquy
Without certainty we cast the net.
Underwater,
immobile, a beautiful fish ignores its destiny.
Sometimes
nowhere to hide
no concavity
to avoid danger.
Like that network these unusual words.
Word
You don’t even belong to me.
orphan of the world
one shadows in the air.
holes
like faded holes
that time smoothes on the walls,
someone, inside you, secretly
cover the cracks of your soul with beauty.
through them
you will see the light that shines in the void.
signs
The void left by the things we love
when they walk away:
water that becomes inconceivable after dreams.
Signs that time conquers with bites,
impossible to contain
in these useless, miserable words.
Transparency
Before seeing the luminous clarity
of her beauty,
time had to work in a vacuum.
recognize the shadow
among the shadow
The cut that left the wounds vibrant.
Everything else is uncertainty.
trap that life
offering
to get used to the pain.
The language of dreams
Someone silently watches us
Pour the water
that always escapes our hands.