CARACAS.- Luis Miguel Isava, Natasha Tiniacos and Gabriela Rosas, members of the jury appointed for this year’s edition, accompanied by Tibisay Guerra, met this Wednesday – July 17 – in a live broadcast from Venezuela on the Instagram account @lapoeteca to communicate the verdict of the Rafael Cadenas National Young Poetry Competitionorganized by the La Poeteca Foundation, Venezuelan Authors, Team Poetero and Banesco Banco Universal, which received 220 texts this year.
According to an official statement, the first prize was awarded to the poem The letter msigned with the pseudonym Edward Wood, whose author turned out to be Johan Alexander Reyes Reyes (25 years old; resident in Caracas, Venezuela); the second prize went to the poem Arayaunder the pseudonym Lidia M. Caneln, written by Oriana Soledad Nuzzy Briceo (30 years old; resident in New York, United States); while the third prize went to the poem Wild graphunder the pseudonym Timoteo Helmstone, originally by Leonardo Javier Rivas Lobo (28 years old; resident in Mérida, Venezuela). In addition to these recognitions, a special mention was given to the poem You must shut your father’s mouthunder the pseudonym Joan Turowski, pen by Andrea Sofa Crespo Madrid (29 years old; resident in Madrid, Spain).
Likewise, the jury chose a group of 17 finalists made up of the young people Yoselin Andreina Goncalves Arteaga, Rosandra Andreina Trejo Sulbarn, Jorge Morales Corona, Gustavo Andres Vera Febres-Cordero, Maria Alejandra Colmenares Leon, Vanessa Stephanie Mendt Villanueva, Laura Elosa Soto Rodriguez, Williams Enrique Linares Gelvis, Jaimar Anallibe Marcano Vivas, Sal Eduardo Figueredo Bravo, Rosbelis Karina Rodriguez Araujo, Fernando Manuel Alva Silva, Oliver Ricardo Zambrano Vegas, Hamid Fouad El Sayegh Surez, Jorge Gabriel Romhain Lazo, Luis Cesar Salazar Gonzalez, Luis Cesar Salazar Gonzalez and Elio Alejandro Esposito Castillo.
The Value of Poetry
“We have unanimously decided to award the first three prizes of this edition the honorable mention and to designate these finalists because we value the fundamental fact that poems matter, since they are capable of marking something of the complexity of life as it is expressed in language. These texts exhibit the ability to make their way through the discursive influences and obligations of other genres, such as the essay or fiction, and to activate the poetic word with its particular aesthetics and its own densities,” stated the jury of the 2024 Rafael Cadenas National Young Poetry Contest in the verdict.
“The selected pieces are an example of this maneuver, as they are poems with density, texture, rhythm, in which we find the work of individual life that reaches a place of encounter and association, evidencing the truth that language is a common space,” added the jury.
The people in charge of judging the participating poems also pointed out that the winning poems mark a break with the pressures of the present without aspiring to an impossible disunity “…because they work from what is shareable, once again: language, and from there they rethink love and pain, history, politics, family and the literary vocation.”
The jury also expressed its enthusiasm at the fact that today, given the overwhelming presence of social networks, more than 220 people have shown their interest in taking on the challenge of turning experiences into words through poetry. “Therefore, we congratulate all the participants and encourage them to continue their searches,” urged the judging team.
Finally, Luis Miguel Isava, Natasha Tiniacos and Gabriela Rosas highlighted that some proposals incorporate the languages of indigenous peoples into poetic writing. “Without a doubt, a path is opened here for future verbal explorations and that is why the intention is valued,” they noted.
To learn more about the 2024 Rafael Cadenas National Young Poetry Contest, you can enter lapoeteca.com or to the institution’s social networks: @lapoeteca.
