Rosalía de Castro

[scruffy1]

I wrote a short something for Camino 2014 concerning the town of Padrón home to both the Santiago church with the Pedron mooring post relic beneath the altar and the small local museum dedicated to Rosalía de Castro, the Poetess Laureate of Galicia for all time. She was a woman haunted by the poverty and misery she saw all around her and which she herself experienced. Her poems are usually stark and sad in their imagery. I do not speak Galician and cannot read her work as she wrote it, the Spanish translations are often also very difficult. There is a book of her poems in English translation - Rosalía de Castro, Selected Poems published by Shearsman Books, Exeter available from the publishers website and another which I have not read found on Amazon. One short poem which does bring memories from the Camino:

The Bells

I love them and listen to them
as I Listen to the breath o’ the wind,
the murmur of the fountain,
or the bleat of the lamb.
At the moment when first light
unfolds across the sky.
the bells, like birds,
welcome dawn with their song.
There is something innocent,
something peaceful, even charming
in their echoing notes that fill
the valleys and hills.
If they were forever hushed—
what sorrow in the sky,
what silence in the church,
what surprise among the dead!

Search her out for she is a wonderful poet.

 

[Pelegrin]

Yes, Rosalía, born in 1837, was the first writer since the Middle Ages who published her poems in Galego.
She is very special for us (Galegos).