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 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
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
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