Eugenio Montejo / Simón Boccanegra

Eugenio Montejo

We’ve lost Eugenio Montejo, one of the noblest voices amid the poetry written in the tongue of those who pray to God in Spanish – as Rubén Darío said in one of his verses. However, this mini-columnist cannot speak of the poet. Others do so today with superior knowledge than my own. Instead, I have to say something about Eugenio Montejo the citizen. A citizen of this republic whose torments were never foreign to him. Dante reserved one of the worst places in hell for those who during times of profound moral crisis opted for the comfortable posture of silence or for an accommodating “neutrality.” Montejo wasn’t one of those. A profound sense of moral duty, much more than a political one, made him negate all pretensions that his work be used as an instrument by a regime that, without gesticulations and from his discrete position in public life, he rejected with absolute firmness as an expression of a moral decadence that repulsed him. This country is fortunate that it can depend on poet-philosophers – as Francisco Rodríguez so accurately describes them – such as him and Rafael Cadenas, who are able to give sustenance, with their mere conduct as citizens, to the deep moral revulsion these Venezuelan times inevitably generate in all good people. Of the poet, his pure verses remain, with their robust simplicity and density, along with the sage chronicles of his various heteronyms and the example of his moral rectitude. This is no minor legacy for the country he loved.




{ Simón Boccanegra, Tal Cual, 9 June 2008 }

Monte Ávila, Rafael Cadenas, Carlos Noguera / Simón Boccanegra

Monte Ávila, Rafael Cadenas, Carlos Noguera

Assuming as reliable the information provided by a professor at UCV’s Escuela de Letras regarding a supposed veto against the work of Rafael Cadenas by Monte Ávila, this mini-columnist made the mistake of publishing a critical note about the matter, revealing my surprise about such behavior coming from Carlos Noguera, the director of the State’s publishing house. Well, the information I commented on doesn’t coincide with the truth. The exact opposite is the case. It is Cadenas himself, along with Eugenio Montejo, who refuses to publish his work with Monte Ávila. Moreover, Noguera has made efforts to publish the verse of the great poet from the state of Lara. So, I apologize to Carlos Noguera for having attributed a censor’s spirit to him. Having received the information, it left me a bit perplexed because I know Noguera well enough to realize that intolerance isn’t one of his characteristic traits. Forgive me, my friend, but in such singular times as these, when the weirdest things happen, and after one has seen so many old friends, once furious critics of Stalinism, who become mute when faced with Farruco [Sesto]’s abuses and other excesses in the cultural landscape, I attributed to you a responsibility that isn’t yours. I’m happy to know you don’t run with that crowd.




{ Simón Boccanegra, Tal Cual, 8 April 2008 }