De Colombiaanse dichter Felipe García Quintero werd geboren op 25 september 1973 in Popayán. Quintero studeerde Spaanse filologie in Spanje, culturele studies in Ecuador en literatuur en Spaans in Colombia. Hij publiceerde vier dichtbundels (“Monólogos del huésped” (Monologen van de gastheer), 1996; “Señales de tránsito” (Verkeersborden), 1997; “Vida de nadie”(Niemands leven), 1999; en “Piedra vacía” (Vacante steen), 2001) en een essay over de Colombiaanse dichter Rafael Maya. Hij heeft verschillende prijzen en beurzen ontvangen in Colombia, Chili en Spanje, waaronder de Premio de Poesía Pablo Neruda. Hij is redacteur van het poëzietijdschrift Ophelia en doceert journalistiek aan de Universidad del Cauca, in Popayán, zijn geboortestad.
Uit: Piedra vacía
IV.
you bring a bit of bread and some wine to feed the vigil in
the night of your soul.
In the depths of your eyes you look at the hands that offered
up their bones to build the house and fill it with words.
Meanwhile, the writing in the darkness grows like the flickering of
the flames, your heart keeps quiet; its tremor stops beating.
Suddenly nobody exists anymore.
We are alone and you only think of her. You give yourself up to
the wine of laughter and the bread of silence, and to your memories:
those thoughts that inflame your tongue and burn like the words that
consume you.
And you want to die, and for that you write:
V.
one believes in writing. That writing is air, and that’s enough.
But language inhabits the outdoors of the house, persists in human
gravity.
Because writing is to be burdened with the procession of your life,
with the implements that do not fit into a different corner which are
not the days, that one after another are the void.
Because death is to go and no more.
And it is the will of love to die.
Yes, the love of dying, the only writing:
Vertaald door Nicolás Suescún
Felipe García Quintero (Popayán, 25 september 1973)