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Cervera Campos 1905 - 1953 (48)

The killers fled with their axes like mirrors, the birds no longer have where to hang their songs.


QUOTES

BALLAD FOR

THE ABSENT TREES



Hérib Campos Cervera (1905-1953) was a Paraguayan poet and writer, one of the pioneers and founders of modern poetry in his country. Born in Asuncion on March 30, 1905, to a Spanish artistic family, his father also wrote lyrics and his mother was the sister of a famous intellectual of the time. He studied indoors at San Jose de Asuncion College, an institution he repeatedly called it a "prison", which had marked his childhood as he grew up away from his parents. We learn from his poems that his youth was not happy either and he had many melancholy periods.

He worked as a contributor to magazines such as Juventud, Ideal and Alas in the 1920s and 1930s, with his work being influenced at that time by postmodernism. He was a left-wing supporter, influenced by the anarchists and Marxist socialists he contacted in Argentina and Uruguay, and in 1931 his participation in the October 23 protests marked his first exile, first to Buenos Aires and then to Montevideo. He joined the literary circles of these countries and collaborated with magazines and newspapers, returned to the country in 1935 and three years later, found himself at the center of a literary movement that will become known as the "Generation of 40". In 1940, when the president of the republic died in a mysterious plane crash and a coup took place, Servera due to his ideology would be forced into exile again in Buenos Aires, where he died.

Campos Servera was a poet of great value, he was the one who paved the way for the new generations of poets in his country. His lyrics are an in-depth study of his contemporaries as he delved into social and existential issues, taking advantage of unexplored folk tales and traditions. Nostalgia and hope, verbal elegance and spiritual transparency characterized his very personal style.