Fernando Rendón (Colombia, 1951)

There is not a poem

There is not a poem
There is no music that calls me to you
That reaches you
There is not a melody that makes your spirit travel

There is not a poem
There is no music that feeds you
That touches you
The songs for you were not enough
No archaic song embraced you
My poor love of love songs
No heritage was accorded to you
The gods did not hurl blazes of flowers at you
They did not make descend unto you all the red gold of the universe
The gold of the legendary music
All the heady sound of the leaves in the wind
Shaping the universe of beings that embrace you
In the intertwinement of all time

My love without songs

Translated by Nicolás Suescún

Fernando Rendón was born in Medellín in 1951. Poet, essayist, editor and journalist. Cofounder of the poetry magazine Clave de Sol in 1972. Founder of the poetry magazine Imago in 1988. Founder and Director of the poetry magazine Prometeo since 1982, with 72 issues up to the moment. Founder and Director of The International Poetry Festival of Medellin which has carried out fifteen editions of the event since 1991. He has published the poetry books Contrahistoria, 1986; Bajo otros soles, 1989; Canción en los campos de Marte, 1992; Los motivos del salmón, 1998; and La cuestión radiante (2005). His poems have been included in poetry publications in France, Germany, Sweden, Luxembourg, Serbia, Hungary, Angola, United States, México, Haití, Argentina, Brazil and Colombia. He has participated in international poetry encounters in Havana, Paris, Nantes, Rosario, Mondorf, Ludenscheid, Viena, Florence and Valencia, Venezuela. In 2002 he was appointed as editor of the Colombian poetry web page of Poetry International Rotterdam. He has directed and produced 17 documentaries in DV Cam format that make up a TV series entitled Tiempo de Poesía which is an audiovisual anthology of the participant poets in The International Poetry Festival of Medellin.