CONCHA URQUIZA: BIOGRAPHY, STYLE, WORKS - BIOGRAPHIES - 2024

Concha Urquiza (1910-1945) was a Mexican writer and poet. Despite her short life and little work, she has been considered one of the most extraordinary women of letters that her country has had.

Urquiza's literary development began when she was a child, a time when she had the opportunity to publish her verses in various Mexican print media. In her childhood years she made known: "Your eyes" and "Canto del oro." Her verses were characterized by being expressive and traditional in terms of composition.

Concha Urquiza. Source: Mexican Cultural Information System, via Wikimedia Commons

Urquiza's brief existence did not allow him to see any books published, but after his death some editions of his poems were released. Experts believe that she was a sublime writer of talent who did not have enough life to project all her passion for the art of writing.

Biography

Birth and early years

María Concepción Urquiza del Valle was born on December 24, 1910 in the city of Morelia, Michoacán, into a cultured and conservative family. Her father's name was Luis and he died when she was two years old, while her mother, also called Concepción, had to take care of her daughter and her other two children: María Luisa and Luis.

Concha moved with her mother and siblings to the country's capital shortly after her father's death. There they spent their first years of primary education. Although she showed an interest in letters and poetry, the writer decided not to finish her high school studies shortly after entering the middle school.

First literary steps

It is known that the first poem that Urquiza wrote was titled "For your beloved" and that, with only twelve years of age, he brought to light the verse "Your eye circles" in 1922. The following year, in the pages of publications Revista de Revistas y Revista de Yucatán released the poems: “Conventual” and “Canto del oro”.

Concha received good reviews and from that time the doors were opened to him in other print media. She was related to important intellectuals and writers of the time, including Arqueles Vela. From these characters she learned about avant-garde movements, but without losing her particularity as a poet.

Other experiences

Urquiza went to live in the United States at the age of eighteen, after having worked for various magazines and newspapers in his native Mexico. He lived in New York for five years, during which time he was part of the team at the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer film production company.

I return to Mexico

The poet manifested her affinity for communism in the mid-1930s, but subsequently turned to the spiritual life of Catholicism. The latter drove her away from her political ideas after a mental trance. Although she entered a convent to become a nun, she finally gave up that idea to dedicate herself to teaching.

Emblem of the Mexican Communist Party, to which Urquiza belonged. Source: PRD MEXICO, via Wikimedia Commons

She served as a professor of history and logic at the University of San Luís Potosí. In those years, Concha kept writing and maintaining contact with the cultural society of the city, along with Rosario Oyarzun and other young promises of letters and other professions.

Last years and death

Concha Urquiza spent the years of her short life writing poetry, teaching and in permanent contact with culture and literature. The last medium she worked for was Viñetas de la Literatura Michoacana, in 1944. She died unexpectedly on June 20, 1945 after drowning in a river in Baja California.

Style

Despite having been in contact with movements such as modernism and avant-garde, Concha Urquiza maintained an independent style during her brief literary career. Her poems were characterized by a simple, precise and expressive language, where rhyme and classical meter prevailed.

Plays

Most of Concha Urquiza's poems were released after her death. Her verses were compiled in various editions thanks to Gabriel Méndez Plancarte, Antonio Castro Leal and Ricardo Garibay, who were in charge of managing her work.

- "Your dark circles" (1922).

- "Canto del oro" (1923).

- "Conventual" (1923).

- Works (1946). Compilation of his poems. Posthumous edition.

- Nostalgia for God (1985). Compilation. Posthumous edition.

Fragments of some of his poems

"Roads"

"Oh sweet traveling song, my joy and my wealth, more than in the sails of the wind

more than in the furrow of the sea.

Through the black trails

clouds full of eagerness, along the red trails

boast of tempest, across the vast plains, loneliness…

but never travel song

my backpack fills me with gold.

… Black impatient walk

jail that flies towards the sea;

gold thread confronts him

the music of a song:

'Which way will be sad

What goes to your sweet lips? '”.

"David"

“Oh Bathsheba, symbolic and fiery!

With double thirst you hurt my heart

when the flame of your body did

duplicate in the transparent wave.

Close the roof and the absent husband, Who can resist the happiness of your love?

Not in vain was the image you gave me

spur the flanks and the mind.

Woe to me, Bathsheba, your tender arm

pierced with light like waves, bundled my flesh to eternal pain!

What hideous blood splattered my fronds!

In what blackness and what dread of winter

the light of your blond pupils was drowned! ".

"Bliss"

"My heart forgets

and clinging to your breasts he falls asleep:

what was life

it clouds and darkens

and in a vague horizon it disappears.

In his lost bliss

abandoned to your burning sweetness, of himself in oblivion, the heart feels

a happy and transparent thing.

The miserable heartbreak

flapped its wings and twisted the path;

Oh incomparable peace!

a delightful day

it does not wait in the shade of your tent… ”.

"Nostalgia for the present"

"I sigh for the most present things

and not for those who are in the distance:

for your love that surrounds me, your life that embraces me

for the hidden essence

that makes me drunk with all my atoms…

Nostalgia for the most present…, anguish

of not being able to capture the nearby light;

immense longing for the embrace itself

that is already drilling the entrails… ”.

References

1. Concha Urquiza. (2019). Spain: Wikipedia. Recovered from: es.wikipedia.org.
2. Moreno, V., Ramírez, E. and others. (2019). (N / a): Search Biographies. Recovered from: Buscabiografias.com.
3. Concha Urquiza. (2018). Mexico: Encyclopedia of Literature in Mexico. Recovered from: elem.mx.
4. Sicilia, J. (2010). Concha Urquiza's passion. Mexico: La Jornada Semanal. Recovered from: día.com.mx.
5. González, L. (2016). Concha Urquiza: a life in the discomfort of the world. (N / a): Viceversa Magazine. Recovered from: viceversa-mag.com.