José Ricardo Mazó the Paraguay

Paraguay

Paraguay , officially the Republic of Paraguay , is a landlocked country in South America. It is bordered by Argentina to the south and southwest, Brazil to the east and northeast, and Bolivia to the northwest. Paraguay lies on both banks of the Paraguay River, which runs through the center of the...

an poet, was born in Pilar

Pilar, Paraguay

Pilar is the capital city of the Paraguayan department of Ñeembucú, located along the Paraguay River in the southwestern part of the country. Located about from Asunción, Pilar serves as an important center of commerce and government for the far southwestern region of the country.- History :Pilar...

, in the department of Ñeembucú http://www.abc.com.py/paraguay/XIIneembucu.htm. He was a member of the Literary Academy of the College of San José and of the Paraguayan Academia Universitaria. After completing his studies in San José, he studied in the University of Texas at Austin

University of Texas at Austin

The University of Texas at Austin is a state research university located in Austin, Texas, USA, and is the flagship institution of the The University of Texas System. Founded in 1883, its campus is located approximately from the Texas State Capitol in Austin...

 and subsequently worked as an Engineer and Geologist.

He is regarded as one of the Promoción del 50, a group of 1950's poets, mainly from the Academia Universitaria and the Faculty of Philosophy in Asunción who wrote socially engaged poetry during Alfredo Stroessner

Alfredo Stroessner

Alfredo Stroessner Matiauda, whose name is also spelled Strössner or Strößner , was a Paraguayan military officer and dictator from 1954 to 1989...

's dictatorship (1954–1989). His poem, ERA EL MES DE NIZAM..., should perhaps be read in that light.

He translated the lecture notes on Aesthetics

Aesthetics

Aesthetics is a branch of philosophy dealing with the nature of beauty, art, and taste, and with the creation and appreciation of beauty. It is more scientifically defined as the study of sensory or sensori-emotional values, sometimes called judgments of sentiment and taste...

 that Hegel had distributed in the University of Berlin into Spanish as Introducción a la Estética de G.W:F. Hegel.

Poetic work

Briznas: suerte de antología (Scraps: A kind of Anthology), 1982, gathers together 73 poems written between the years 1940 and 1980. The book is organised into five parts:

1. First poems;
2. Empty hours;
3. Return;
4. The second solitude;
5. Open bastion.

Solitude, absence, nostalgia, distance, boredom ... as well as a constant search for the self, a recurrent encounter with time, and fixation on an unceasing memory, are the dominant motifs of his poetry. In several of his poems, the poetic voice alludes to a mysterious angel.

External links

• A brief dictionary of Paraguayan Literature (in Spanish)