Why do this?

My father, José Luis Villamizar Melo, passed away in my home town of Cúcuta, Colombia, in August last year. The law and economics were Dad's profession, but literature, history and academia his passion. He wrote and published several books, articles and book chapters. The thing is that so many people have missed out on his work, particularly on his beautiful poetry, which he wrote in Spanish prior to the world wide web. So I thought, what a better way to keep Dad's legacy alive than to bring his writing beyond his world and share it with mine. That is why I am translating over 250 of my Dad's poems to English and publishing them here, one a day, Monday to Friday during 2011 (Dad, a family man, always believed that you shouldn't work on weekends).



Literary work

Some of the highlights among José Luis Villamizar Melo's extensive literary body of work are the poetry books:
  • La ventana y la estrella (The window and the star)
  • Poemas (Poems)
  • Sombrabajo (Under the shadow)
  • Teoría del crepúsculo (Twilight Theory)
  • Homenaje a Bolívar (Tribute to Bolívar)
  • Alfarero de patrias (Motherlands potter)
  • Patria elemental (Elementary motherland)
  • Poesía de urgencia (Urgent poetry)
  • La tarde festejada (The celebrated afternoon); and
  • Poesía en Norte de Santander (Poetry in Norte de Santander).
In prose, Villamizar Melo wrote:
  • Nombres y voces (Names and voices)
  • Perfiles memoriosos (Memorable profiles)
  • Temas, Imágenes, Recortes (Topics, images and paper cutouts)
  • Escala en París (Stopover in Paris); and
  • Bolívar, el hombre de las leyes fundamentales (Bolívar, man of fundamental laws).
During the 80's and 90's José Luis was also a regular columnist in the local newspapers ‘La Opinión’ and ‘Diario de la Frontera'.
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