Skip to content

We ask you, humbly: don't scroll away.

Hi readers, it seems you use Catholic Online a lot; that's great! It's a little awkward to ask, but we need your help. If you have already donated, we sincerely thank you. We're not salespeople, but we depend on donations averaging $14.76 and fewer than 1% of readers give. If you donate just $5.00, the price of your coffee, Catholic Online School could keep thriving. Thank you.

Help Now >

Suffering as a Creative Experience for a Poet

Free World Class Education
FREE Catholic Classes

Irma Bettancourt, Recipient of Rielo Award for Mystical Poetry

SANTIAGO, Chile, JAN. 8, 2004 (Zenit) - "From the Loom of Time" is the title of the poetic composition that won Irma Bettancourt the 23rd Fernando Rielo World Award for Mystical Poetry.

In this interview, the Chilean sheds light on her poetry, reveals the source of her inspiration, and tells why the world needs poetry.

Q: What is mystical poetry for you?

Bettancourt: For me it is that poetry that arises from the depth of suffering that every human being experiences before his own weakness, and before the termination and fleetingness of this life.

The mystical poet tries to express, although pallidly, but in the most beautiful way possible, that dramatic longing that lies deep down in every human being, even if one is not aware of it: the longing for transcendence and for profound and personal dialogue with the One who is himself transcendence and source of life.

Suffering is not absent in mystical poetry, because it expresses a state of constant longing and nostalgia for the total possession of God. But this suffering -- and this is essential -- is always impregnated with hope that that possession will come, and with a profound love which, although human and weak, enters into dialogue with the infinite love of God, whose presence is in the depths of every human being.

We ask you, humbly: don't scroll away.

Hi readers, it seems you use Catholic Online a lot; that's great! It's a little awkward to ask, but we need your help. If you have already donated, we sincerely thank you. We're not salespeople, but we depend on donations averaging $14.76 and fewer than 1% of readers give. If you donate just $5.00, the price of your coffee, Catholic Online School could keep thriving. Thank you.

Help Now >

Mystical poetry arises when the poet, because of something mysterious and at the same time moving, succeeds in peering into his time, which is not time, as I express it in one of my poems. And this single event is the cause of immense happiness for him.

Q: What was the inspiration for your award-winning work?

Bettancourt: If I were to summarize it in a few words I would say that "From the Loom of Time" and other poems I have written, have arisen from a real situation: on one hand, my extreme weakness, and on the other, the certainty of the existence of another immutable and transcendent reality that our physical senses can barely perceive -- after a sunset, the warble of a thrush, the aroma of a wave, the unfolding of a flower or the moisture of dew when walking on grass. And, all of a sudden, as a gift, after the presence of any human being.

Scripture says, and St. Augustine expresses it very well, that God dwells in every man. I believe it, and so experience it.

Therefore, the inspiration to write these poems, I feel, has arisen spontaneously from my innermost being. From this inner room where God dwells, often silenced by our own interior noise and our own plans, because it so happens that he created us free, and respects our freedom.

And it has also arisen from that eloquent and delicate language with which the Lord speaks to us through the wonders of nature and of the cosmos.

Direct and continuous contact for a long time with sacred Scripture has strengthened me in this dialogue with God, and has also become a source of inspiration, given that within it, I have been able to discover my own history, with my falls and rises.

Q: Do you think the world needs poets? For what?

Bettancourt: I think it needs them to balance somewhat the action of our humanity. We have advanced much in the sciences and in technology, which satisfy the needs of the body. And that is good.

But it so happens, whether we like it or not, that we are not just bones and a mouth that needs to eat. There is another reality within us, which groans, as sacred Scripture says.

This explains depressions and suicides, because there is something in us that will never be satisfied with the material [world].

Contact

Catholic Online
https://www.catholic.org CA, US
Catholic Online - Publisher, 661 869-1000

Email

info@yourcatholicvoice.org

Keywords

Poet, Poetry

More Catholic PRWire

Showing 1 - 50 of 4,716

A Recession Antidote
Randy Hain

Monaco & The Vatican: Monaco's Grace Kelly Exhibit to Rome--A Review of Monegasque-Holy See Diplomatic History
Dna. Maria St. Catherine Sharpe, t.o.s.m., T.O.SS.T.

The Why of Jesus' Death: A Pauline Perspective
Jerom Paul

A Royal Betrayal: Catholic Monaco Liberalizes Abortion
Dna. Maria St.Catherine De Grace Sharpe, t.o.s.m., T.O.SS.T.

Embrace every moment as sacred time
Mary Regina Morrell

My Dad
JoMarie Grinkiewicz

Letting go is simple wisdom with divine potential
Mary Regina Morrell

Father Lombardi's Address on Catholic Media
Catholic Online

Pope's Words to Pontifical Latin American College
Catholic Online

Prelate: Genetics Needs a Conscience
Catholic Online

State Aid for Catholic Schools: Help or Hindrance?
Catholic Online

Scorsese Planning Movie on Japanese Martyrs
Catholic Online

2 Nuns Kidnapped in Kenya Set Free
Catholic Online

Holy See-Israel Negotiation Moves Forward
Catholic Online

Franchising to Evangelize
Catholic Online

Catholics Decry Anti-Christianity in Israel
Catholic Online

Pope and Gordon Brown Meet About Development Aid
Catholic Online

Pontiff Backs Latin America's Continental Mission
Catholic Online

Cardinal Warns Against Anti-Catholic Education
Catholic Online

Full Circle
Robert Gieb

Light Your Free Payer Candle for a departed loved one

What is Palm Sunday?

Live on March 20, 2024 @ 10am PDT

Three words to a deeper faith
Paul Sposite

Relections for Lent 2009
chris anthony

Wisdom lies beyond the surface of life
Mary Regina Morrell

World Food Program Director on Lent
Catholic Online

Moral Clarity
DAN SHEA

Pope's Lenten Message for 2009
Catholic Online

A Prayer for Monaco: Remembering the Faith Legacy of Prince Rainier III & Princess Grace and Contemplating the Moral Challenges of Prince Albert II
Dna. Maria St. Catherine Sharpe

Keeping a Lid on Permissiveness
Sally Connolly

Glimpse of Me
Sarah Reinhard

The 3 stages of life
Michele Szekely

Sex and the Married Woman
Cheryl Dickow

A Catholic Woman Returns to the Church
Cheryl Dickow

Modernity & Morality
Dan Shea

Just a Minute
Sarah Reinhard

Catholic identity ... triumphant reemergence!
Hugh McNichol

Edging God Out
Paul Sposite

Burying a St. Joseph Statue
Cheryl Dickow

George Bush Speaks on Papal Visit
Catholic Online

Sometimes moving forward means moving the canoe
Mary Regina Morrell

Action Changes Things: Teaching our Kids about Community Service
Lisa Hendey

Easter... A Way of Life
Paul Spoisite

Papal initiative...peace and harmony!
Hugh McNichol

Proclaim the mysteries of the Resurrection!
Hugh McNichol

Jerusalem Patriarch's Easter Message
Catholic Online

Good Friday Sermon of Father Cantalamessa
Catholic Online

Papal Address at the End of the Way of the Cross
Catholic Online

Cardinal Zen's Meditations for Via Crucis
Catholic Online

Interview With Vatican Aide on Jewish-Catholic Relations
Catholic Online

Pope Benedict XVI On the Easter Triduum
Catholic Online

Holy Saturday...anticipation!
Hugh McNichol

Join the Movement
When you sign up below, you don't just join an email list - you're joining an entire movement for Free world class Catholic education.

Lent logo
Saint of the Day logo

Catholic Online Logo

Copyright 2024 Catholic Online. All materials contained on this site, whether written, audible or visual are the exclusive property of Catholic Online and are protected under U.S. and International copyright laws, © Copyright 2024 Catholic Online. Any unauthorized use, without prior written consent of Catholic Online is strictly forbidden and prohibited.

Catholic Online is a Project of Your Catholic Voice Foundation, a Not-for-Profit Corporation. Your Catholic Voice Foundation has been granted a recognition of tax exemption under Section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code. Federal Tax Identification Number: 81-0596847. Your gift is tax-deductible as allowed by law.