TEÓDULO LÓPEZ MELÉNDEZ, Writer and Journalist - Caracas, Venezuela
The Republic of Guarimure is not in the horn of África. It is not some nation slowed in their independence of the European colonial powers. It is not required passport neither the obtaining of a visa. It is not necessary to go toward Maiquetía to take a long flight. It is not an Arab or Persian nation that has sponsored a national fracture, they are not Kurdish that they have decided to be proclaimed independent or some Muslim partiality that he has decided to modify the map.
He is Juan Páez Ávila who calls me to intend that we travel to the Republic of Guarimure. When he explains to me that it is two seconds they don't happen without he is making a suitcase. The Republic of Guarimure (indigenous voice, achagua that means “the place of all the places”) it is located in Carora, state Lara, Republic of Venezuela (geographical precision for my readers of the exterior).
The Republic of Guarimure is not a challenge to Plato, although almost. Guarimure is a project of the word, it is a republic of children poets. It consists on a project of creation of Literary Centers in the schools of Carora. Everything begins with a parade from the Square of Cecilio Zubillaga Perera to the house where this he inhabited exercising one of the most transcendent teachings in the history of Venezuela. There they arrive and the party begins. I concert of the local nucleus of the “system” (like it has been given in nominating to that wonderful reality that you/they are the infantile and juvenile orchestras). the day the children's poets following recital.
They are 86, but not all can tell us their words, so that they have made a previous selection. Then he plays us to read the poets that we attend. We don't choose poems for infants, we don't make a reading selection for beardless. No who read before them we try to give the best in our texts. In the morning of Friday we make it Jesus Enrique Neighborhoods, this servant, Orlando Pichardo and Polished José.
The poet Neighborhoods is already minister of this Republic, because everything should have a government. Their title is Secretary of he Swims her and other Useless Things. For sure my colleagues are already also Secretaries. The children want autographs and we look our faces after 86 signatures on the poster of the encounter. They hurt our hands from signing, but how to refuse them.
A beardless one arrives and he sits down in the deserted presidium. They are hardly come the eyes to the edge of the table. I think initially that he is a boy that walks loose in the house of Chío, but I verify that it is the one in charge of closing the recital. With an impressive security and a better diction reads two extraordinary poems. He is the poet's son Jesus Enrique León and of their wife Úrsula, the two passionate lunatics that direct the project. Jesus Enrique begins to reorganize the despelote. It is that three ladies of the Central Bank of Venezuela that should dictate the children a class of economy are (origin of the currency, operation of the BCV, basic principles of economy).
He has been owed Armando for years León, economist linked caroreño to our main financial institution. I take advantage to thumb through the poems at random that Blanca's hand Andueza, directress of the House of Chío sponsored by the UCLA, he has helped to hang of the walls next to the leaders of the Republic of Guarimure. Here I discover Vallejo, further on to Neruda, and to the Venezuelan poets. They are natural influences, comprehensible when one discovers that the annual prizes of poetry have like prize 150 books to the winner.
The Republic of Guarimure has its headquarters in an old colonial large house that is in front of the house of Cecilio Zubillaga Perera. In the wall it is colored the sign: “The poet's corner”. One crosses the narrow one Ramón he remains silent Pompilio Oropeza from a side to another. The library is in the famous teacher's caroreño house that outside of the poet Alí Lameda (any better place for her). nevertheless it is necessary to feed the other one, that of the house of in front, because not only books in the shelves are required, also to give their prizes to the winners of the competitions.
The writers that read me send this way their books: Jesus Enrique León, Republic of Guarimure, Street Bolívar with street Ramón Pompilio Oropeza, Carora, State Lara, Venezuela. It is impossible that they get lost, everybody knows where it is. Not only of poetry, any text. Páez Ávila and I take the car full with our donations. He laughs with the mischief: among their donations he goes “The Capital” of Carlos Marx.
The Republic of Guarimure exceeds to a simple literary adventure. It is a process of social integration. He would say that little cares quality of the poems, although there are them very good and already with prizes. Who assumes the word he has found a new vision of the world, a recompense to the yearnings. It is not to challenge Plato, but of there writers will leave-to anybody it fits him the smallest doubt - and those that abandon will take an indelible mark, that of the power of the word and any thing that they make in the life will be marked this way by a respect toward the creative power. If the system of “you orchestrate” it produced a Gustavo Dudamel and to this boy of a quarter of Caracas that has been assumed by the Symphonic of Berlin, one can imagine to one of these children receiving a Nóbel or being published by the main editorials of the world.
Extenuante, the process. A light plane arrives with the writer Oscar Marcano and a delegation of Econoinvest. The mecenas wants to see the phenomenon of a nation of children poets closely (and I use with conscience the word nation). hours Pass listening to the biggest (he should say to the biggest, because the girls are ten for each male) and their enthusiasm is inocultable.
The idea is to transform to the Republic of Guarimure into a project that it embraces to the whole country. It is necessary to create a National Address of Shops of literary Creation that has their headquarters in Carora. Páez Ávila and I abandon the territory of the possible thing, but the following day new poets they will end up from Caracas and other parts to read to this species of beardless Athenians that you/they leave the visible city to listen those who preach in the agora.
The Republic of Guarimure makes honor to its indigenous name, it is really the place of all the places. It is the place of the word and one can feel Cecilio Zubillaga Perera-teacher of a generation invalorable - listening at the two of the dawn Radiates Moscow, the BBC of London, the Voice of America to produce a bulletin of international news (as Páez he relates it Ávila in a conference on the topic) for the scarce local newspapers of their time. Now Don Chío sits down placidly to listen the children poets of Carora, calm and with a great smile in the lips. There in their room Marx, Lenin and Jesus hang, just as the one he wanted.
Julio Bolívar presents magazines and he announces editorial projects. The poet Pichardo surrenders “it Begins”, the magazine of the UCLA and he relates as he has just called it to the cellular one from Bogotá the poet Arbeláez to greet the poets. It sounds the Republic of Guarimure. There it can be happening a miracle. He would be necessary to go on pilgrimage until there like one goes on pilgrimage to a sanctuary, one without religious images, one where the word sends.
One where he will listen or to say, one where there is a temple to the creative imagination. Polished José observes me that one of the children cried while I read. Do I worry, will it be that I scared him with my vozarrón? I ask a broken-hearted point. Non poet, José answers, he was simply moved. Coarse and it has more than enough, it is the first time that I read for children and one feels like they are put one in the soul.
