Ramon Lopez Velarde

Ramón López Velarde was a Mexican poet who incorporated French Symbolist techniques into the treatment of purely Mexican themes. He is considered one of the greatest Mexican poets of the 20th century and the national poet of Mexico. He studied law and was a journalist and civil servant. He supported the political reforms of Francisco Madero and later the Constitutionalist faction during the Mexican Revolution. He was deeply influenced by the modernist poetry of Amado Nervo and Andrés González Blanco. His first book of poems, La sangre devota (1916), deals with the simplicity of country life, the tension between sensuality and spirituality, and his love for his cousin Fuensanta, who died in 1917. His second book, Zozobra (1919), expresses his feelings of loss and anguish with more intensity and complexity. His third book, El son del corazón (1932), was published posthumously and contains some of his most celebrated poems. He also wrote essays on literary, political, and religious topics, collected in El minutero (1933), El don de febrero (1952), and Prosa política (1953). He died of pneumonia in Mexico City at the age of 33.