Raúl del Cristo Gómez Jattin (1945-1997) was a Colombian writer and poet, who also stood out as a teacher and theater actor. His life was marked by episodes of madness that did not have a precise diagnosis, and also by drug use. He was interned several times in sanatoriums and came to live on the streets.
Gómez Jattin's literary work was not extensive, but his talent for writing was undoubted. His poetry was characterized by being intense and deep and by the use of a simple and expressive language. The themes he developed were related to love, sex, nature and his personal experiences.
The most outstanding publications of the author were: Ceretean triptych, Dawn in the Sinú Valley, Of love Y Butterfly splendor. Gómez Jattin obtained public recognition despite his short literary production. Perhaps if madness had not been in his life, his talent would have transcended much more.
Article index
Raúl was born on May 31, 1945 in Cartagena de Indias (Colombia) into a cultured, middle-class family. His father was called Joaquín Pablo Gómez Reynero and his mother responded to the name of Lola Jattin, being of Arab descent. His childhood was spent in the town of Cereté in Córdoba.
The first years of Raúl's school training took place in the towns of Cereté and Montería, where he lived with his parents. In 1955 he settled in the city where he was born, where he attended high school and high school at Colegio La Esperanza. He lived those years under the strict rules and education of his grandmother and maternal aunts..
Gómez Jattin obtained a bachelor's degree in 1963, but did not immediately enter the university due to family financial problems. So he went to Cereté and there he taught history and geography classes..
A year later, he began studying law at the Externado de Colombia University, in Bogotá. Soon after, he abandoned the career for theatrical training.
The eight years that Gómez Jattin lived in Bogotá he dedicated to studying and doing theater. He was part of the Externado Experimental Theater Group and continuously participated in staging. Some testimonies coincide when stating that he had an unmatched talent to interpret.
The passionate actor had the opportunity to present his first play at the 1972 Manizales Festival, but it did not go well. His work did not fit with the communist ideas that prevailed at that time and the public rejected it. After the failure he decided not to write more theater and returned to Cereté.
Once in Cereté, Gómez Jattin settled in a property owned by his parents and dedicated himself to writing poetry. He frequently traveled to Bogotá to act in plays. In December 1976 he suffered the loss of his father, a situation that plunged him into deep sadness. Shortly after that, psychological problems surfaced.
The poet had stages in which he was completely lucid and others in which he had to be confined in medical centers and be under medication. Those who knew him described his mental episodes as "frenzied" and "terrifying", dealing with him complicated and unbearable. Around that time they began to call him "The madman".
Gómez Jattin was aware of his talent, so he took advantage of moments of sanity to dedicate himself to developing it. In 1981 he released his first work, which he titled Poems.
Seven years later he published one of his most important works, which he titled Ceretan triptych. In this work he wrote about his sexual experiences with animals and other childhood experiences.
The writer lived his last years of life between sanity and madness. At that time, Gómez produced some literary works, among which stand out Portraits, Splendor of the butterfly Y Of love.
His mental health problems and drug use led him to live on the streets. The writer finally died on May 22, 1997 in Cartagena de Indias, after being hit by a car.
The literary style of this writer was characterized by the use of clear and expressive language. His poetry was dense, deep and at times experiential. Gómez Jattin showed freedom regarding the themes he developed; wrote about sex, love, friendship, nature and his childhood years.
- Poems (nineteen eighty one).
- Ceretean triptych (1988).
- Poetry 1980-1989 (1989).
- Pictures (1992).
- Sunrise in the Sinú Valley.
- Of love.
- Children of time.
- Butterfly splendor (1993).
- Book of madness (posthumous edition, 2000).
- The poets, my love (posthumous edition, 2000).
The book was written months before his death and is one of the most relevant poetic works of Raúl Gómez Jattin. In the manuscript, the poet portrayed his vision of sex and love through verses inspired by his romantic relationships..
In this work he openly expressed his homosexuality in Ceretean triptych, Similarly, he spoke of his addiction to drugs and the sexual experiences he had with animals since childhood..
This poetic work by Gómez Jattin stood out for its content, in it the author put aside his experiences and was inspired by works of Greek literature. Gómez used a cultured language and the theme was more intellectual. Some of the characters in his verses were: Homer, Medea, Menkaure and Theseus.
"The garden is still
enduring the afternoon
of a march to be announced
windy,
so fleeting that it seems january.
Penetrated at night
in lemon trees and acacias.
Opal in the distance in the forehead of the sky
the garden shakes inside.
... Suddenly an almost invisible mist descends
and lays its gloom in the foliage
caressing the knot of our bodies,
with the same slow sweetness
with which I, half strength, half fear
I kiss your neck and your crystal black beard.
There is the garden smelling of male sweat,
to saliva of deep kisses
who yearn to unleash the torrent of desire ... ".
"If you wanted to hear what I say to myself on the pillow,
the blush on your face would be the reward.
They are words so intimate, like my own flesh
that suffers the pain of your implacable memory.
I count, yes? Won't you take revenge one day?
I tell myself:
I would kiss that mouth slowly until it turns red,
and in your sex the miracle of a low hand
at the most unexpected moment
and as by chance
he touches it with that fervor that inspires the sacred.
I am not evil. I try to fall in love.
I try to be honest with how sick I am,
and enter the curse of your body ... ".
"Lady of the dawn
with your childhood as a swallow
making summer
you inaugurated in me the path of the heart.
Thick love.
Like the drunkenness of the Stropharia,
reminiscent moral with window to the future.
Like the slow dry afternoon
which is the afternoon of life for me.
Like the river of mud in my valley
that in winter dragged dead animals.
Like my grandmother's perfidious bliss
who rejoiced in being a monster.
Fury of the years in droves.
Steps of death.
She walks unscathed.
Lonely in my way.
Meat that you replace yourself ".
"I have for you my good friend
a mango heart from Sinú
odorous
genuine
kind and tender.
(My rest is a sore
a no man's land
a stone
the blink of an eye
in someone else's night ...).
And a tip
don't meet me ".
- "In your words the beyond of love and its dream is contained".
- "If the clouds do not anticipate in their forms the history of men, if the colors of the river the designs of the God of the Waters ... If my friends are not a legion of clandestine angels, what will become of me ...".
- “What the verb grants the peoples. The traditional relationship, from primitive man and his language, has been essentially poetic; poetry is the thought of its original essence, it is thought itself ".
- "I consider poetry as an art of thought that includes philosophy, it is the supreme art of thought, it is thought lived, transcendent and unconscious, which further aggravates its difficulty".
- "You live in this book, although I am afraid of you, although we have barely spoken, but I love you as much as ever, as much as you can imagine and we are far away as alone and the sea".
- "As a passionate poet that I am, that I suffer from, the coherence of the poem is my transcendental problem".
- Thank you, sir, for making me weak, crazy, childish. Thank you for these prisons that free me ".
- “Instantaneous lightning your appearance, you appear suddenly in a vertigo of fire and music where you disappear. You dazzle my eyes and stay in the air ".
- "I am not evil, I try to fall in love with you, I try to be honest with how sick I am and enter the curse of your body like a river that fears the sea, but always dies in it".
- "If you wanted to hear what I say to myself on the pillow, the blush on your face would be the reward".
Yet No Comments