FERNANDO RIELO FOUNDATION

María José Romero wins the XXVII
Fernando Rielo World Prize for Mystical Poetry
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On the other hand, Estrella Bello Fernández, from Seville, Spain, received an honorary mention for her work Atormentada luz. There were twelve finalists: the two abovementioned awardees, Sabeli Cevallos (Mexico), Kenneth Céspedes (Costa Rica), Eliécer Fernández (Cuba), Ronel González (Cuba) y Jorge Hadandoniu (Argentina); from Spain: Enrique Barrero, María Pilar Martínez, Luis M. Natera, Onofre Rojano, and Lucrecia Serrano. Participating poets were not only from Spanish speaking countries, USA or Europe, but there were poets from Nigeria, Zimbawe, Japan, and India as well.

The award ceremony served also as a way to pay homage to the great composer from Navarre (Spain), Pablo Sarasate, in commemoration of the 100th anniversary of his death. Young violinists  Javier, Leyre, Pablo Aznárez Maeztu, and pianist Gracia María Martínez Ferrer performed Sarasate's compositions.

The jury was presided by Dr.. Jesús Fernández Hernández, President of the Fernando Rielo Foundation. Members of the jury were poet and University of la Laguna professor Dr. Andrés Sánchez Robayna (Spain) ; writer and University of Rome “Tor Vergata” professor, Dr. Arnaldo Colasanti; literary critic , Dr. David G. Murray; and the Permanent Secretary of the Prize, Dr. José M. López Sevillano.

Cardinal Camilo Ruini was the President the Honor Committee formed by professors Valentín García Yebra, Gregorio Salvador Caja, Antonio Mingote, and Luís María Ansón (all members of the Royal Academy for the Spanish Language), the Presidents of the Autonomous University of Madrid, the Polytechnic University of Madrid and Comillas University, and the Spanish poets Carlos Germán Belli and Juan Van-Halen, President de Spanish Association for Writers and Artists. .

According to the jury's view: “María José Romero Medina's literary work La llama en el cristal becomes light in the simple, sincere and enamored word that seeks the vision and the interpretation of the divine grandness: “Ver tu rostro, leerte / palmo a palmo en tu abierta geografía” (Seeing your face, to read you / inch by inch in your open geograpphy). But this is done in loving suffering: “amor hecho de luz donde duele la luz” (Love made of light where light pains). Her mystical experience of grace is “herida de luz” (wound of light): “Soy yo./ La que espera tu diluvio de luz, / la luz de tu misterio / en mi doliente llama hasta tu fuego” (It is I who awaits your deluge of light / the light of your mistery / in my suffering flame towards your fire) . But there is also a gratifying mystical experience: “Pues sé que estás ahí, / mi duro amor, / mi lejano amor, mi amor cercano. / Hoy escribo y Tú eres el poema, / la llama en el cristal del aire” (I do know you are there / my hard love / my faraway, so close love. / I write today and You are the poem, / the flame in the crystal of the air). The author of La llama en el cristal knows about mystical purification. When everything is darkness, storm, oblivion, dream devastation, she exclaims: “Ahora / es la hora sagrada de bendecir tu nombre. / Bendito Tú que nos creces cuando más hundidos, / que nos levantas conociendo el límite”.  ( Now / it is the sacred time to bless your name. / Blessed are You who gives us courage when we are sinking, / who lifts us knowing the limit). We must  “overcome the dark night heaping rills of light from sun to sun  / and painting in blue the tedious days”.  It is a prayerful, sincere, communicative, and prophetic poetry transformed in a simple and humble embrace with solitude where we exclaim: “enséñame a escuchar  / tus voces de silencio” (Teach how to listen / to your silent words).

The closing words from the President of the Fernando Rielo Foundation, Dr. Jesús Fernández Hernández, emphasized one of the purposes of mystical poetry: “the confession of the poet´s faith lived in a continuous and unhesitant  ecstatic contemplation. Therefore, mystical poetry is self-revealing, unifying, priestly, prophetic, and ecstatic. Mystical poetry takes us closer to the eternal beatitude and shows us how to live it.  Thus the poetic word of the mystical poet, being in the image and likeness of the divine word, creates a language of unknown fragrant essences by means of heavenly brushstrokes that evokes with outmost simplicity our heavenly destiny. Furthermore, mystical poetry has the mission of restoring the broken unitive dialogue in an autistic, rather than atheistic or agnostic, society. If there is not dialogue with God, there is not dialogue with others. In this sense, mystical poetry makes possible the restoration and liberation of such dialogue.”

Cardinal Ruini said in his opening remarks that “Mystical poetry is much more than religious poetry. Religious poetry is at the reach of any poet, whereas mystical poetry is only written by those with mystical experience. Thus mystical poetry must be understood as the art of expressing the progressive union of love with the divine through the aesthetical image shaped with words. The mystic may then find in literature the right path to express this deep experience of the union with God, rather than in the philosophical discourse.”