RAÚL GÓMEZ JATTIN: BIOGRAPHY, STYLE, WORKS, PHRASES - BIOGRAPHIES - 2024

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.

Raúl Gómez Jattin. Source: Raulgomezjattin.files.wordpress.com

The most outstanding publications of the author were: Ceretean Triptych, Amanecer en el Valle del Sinú, Del amor and Esplendor de la mariposa. Gómez Jattin obtained public recognition despite his short literary output. Perhaps if madness had not been in his life, his talent would have transcended much more.

Biography

Birth and family

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.

Studies

Raúl's first years of 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.

Universidad Externado de Colombia, where Raúl Gómez saw law classes, but then dropped out. Source: Felipe Restrepo Acosta, via Wikimedia Commons

A year later, he began studying law at the Externado de Colombia University in Bogotá. Shortly after, he gave up his career for theater training.

Life in the Colombian capital

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 in stating that he had an unparalleled 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.

Between loss and madness

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 "frantic" and "terrifying", being the treatment with him complicated and unbearable. Around that time they began to call him "The crazy".

Dedication to poetry

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.

Cartagena de Indias, the birthplace of Raúl Gómez Jattin. Source: Peruwikila, via Wikimedia Commons

Seven years later he published one of his most important works, which he called the Ceretano Triptych. In this work he wrote about his sexual experiences with animals and other childhood experiences.

Last years and death

The writer lived his last years of life between sanity and madness. At that time, Gómez produced some literary works, including Portraits, Esplendor de la mariposa and Del amor.

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.

Style

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 demonstrated freedom regarding the themes he developed; he wrote about sex, love, friendship, nature, and his childhood years.

Plays

- Splendor of the butterfly (1993).

- Book of madness (posthumous edition, 2000).

- The poets, my love (posthumous edition, 2000).

Brief description of some of his works

Ceretean triptych

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 a Ceretean Triptych, in the same way he spoke of his addiction to drugs and the sexual experiences he had with animals since his childhood.

Children of time

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.

Fragments of some of his poems

"Erotic imaginary"

"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 trembles 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 masculine sweat, to saliva of deep kisses

who long to unleash the torrent of desire… ”.

"Almost obscene"

"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 get 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… ”.

"Change of identity"

"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 intoxication of the Stropharia, reminiscent moral with a window to the future.

Like the slow dry afternoon

which is for me the afternoon of life.

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"

"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 ”.

Phrases

- "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 gives to 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 suddenly appear in a vertigo of fire and music where you disappear. You dazzle my eyes and stay in the air ”.

- "I'm 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."

References

1. Raúl Gómez Jattin. (2019). Spain: Wikipedia. Recovered from: es.wikipedia.org.
2. Raúl Gómez Jattin. (S. f.). Cuba: Ecu Red. Recovered from: ecured.cu.
3. Buelvas, F. (2012). Raúl Gómez Jattin. (N / a): Kien and Ke. Recovered from: kyenyke.com.
4. Raúl Gómez Jattin. (2013). Colombia: The Triumph of Arciniegas. Recovered from: eltriunfodearciniegas.blogspot.com.
5. Guzmán, R. (2013). Raúl Gómez Jattin, poet from Sinú. Colombia: The World. Recovered from: elmundo.com.