This week we have the partnership of Francis Prada, student of 2nd year of Degree in language and Spanish Literature. In his text, he defends the need for poets in today's society.

What was Octavio Paz talking about when he wrote: "poetry, like history, is made, poetry, like truth, is seen"? What was Violeta Parra referring to when she sang in tragedies: "look how they talk to us about freedom when in reality they deprive us of it", and why did the Romantics repeat so much that the poet was the only one capable of presenting the truth to mankind? 

All these ideas have something in common, they announce that the poet denies, the poet contemplates, but most importantly, the poet lives. But what subject of life is it that the poet experiences? When we are told about poets we tend to imagine men elevated in fantasies: we think of that recluse who leaves the earth and escapes into the ether but, in describing him in this way, we omit his real work. We are wrong to forget that his place is not only in the lofty, but also among "the masses." By mingling with them, the poet reaches true life, which lies even beyond contemplation. This is why the elevated poet must come down and accept the earth. The German writer Hölderin, in his poem As on a Holiday, describes the poet as the only one capable of approaching the divine fire and thanks to him "the children of the earth" can safely drink in the truth. Now, following Hölderlin's example, the elevated poet must himself become a "son of the earth" and submit the fire to his peers because why lose oneself in books and thoughts if they are not used to return to the earth and reflect on actuality? "Come down, come down, cover yourselves with mud!" we exclaim to the lofty. It is time for poets to enter contact with the mass they fear and, thus, remember their humanity.

In The Revolt of the Masses, Ortega mentions that science has become specialized, and in doing so has caused the scientist to seclude himself "in an ever narrower field of occupation". Like result, the scientist knows a lot about his area, but forgets what exists behind it. specialization Let us not let the same thing happen to culture, and let us poets forget that our eyes belong not only to the stars, but also to the earth, to humanity, to the world that is going on all around us and about which we must have a say. After all, we poets have had many disguises throughout history. We have been Lucano denouncing the civil war and Victor Jara singing against the dictatorship, we have dressed as Neruda seeking the freedom of a people through the word. Even so, we have always had the same goal: to reveal the truth to the world and to be the first to give our opinion.

Society has lost its enlightened guides, and we need to recover that intermediary who teaches us to admire with beauty, but also to give a harsh opinion. María Zambrano reminds us that "the writer defends his solitude by showing what is found in it, and only in it". So, I ask the poet and the writer, what have you found in your solitude? Why don't you tell us? Why don't you return to the earth? Because to live is to have an opinion, and a poet without life has forgotten his work and humanity.

Bibliography

Quiroga member of the clergy, M. (1998). Octavio Paz: literature and its exiles. Razón Y Fé, 237(1196), 637-641. Retrieved from https://revistas.comillas.edu/index.php/razonyfe/article/view/19671

Parra, V (1965), What will the Holy Father say? In Remembering Chile (a Chilean woman in Paris).

Ortega y Gasset. J. (1983). The rebellion of the masses. Alianza publishing house. 

Zambrano, M. (1934), Why do we write? La revista de Occidente. Retrieved from María Zambrano: ¿Por qué se escribe? (conectorium.com).

Holderlin, F. (1977). Hölderlin, complete works in poetry. Editions 29.

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