Aquilino Iglesia Alvariño


Category: Poet
Birth Date: 10th June 1909 († 29th July 1961)
Birth Place: Seivane- San Xoán de Vilarente- Abadín (Lugo)
 Curriculum

Aquilino Iglesia Alvariño studied at the Seminary in Mondoñedo. From 1935 to 1949, he was the master at Leon XIII School in Vilagarcía. He studied Arts in Santiago and took a degree in Latin. He worked in Secondary Schools in Lugo, Pontevedra and Santiago. He was a member of the Galician Academy and collaborated in the Institute ?Padre Sarmiento?.

 Work & Activities

He started to write poems about the year 1925. These poems were picked up in the book Señardá, which was published five years later. These poems are sonnets about Galician landscapes. In 1933 he published Corazón do vento and in 1941 he published in Buenos Aires his only book written in Castilian language: Contra el ángel y la noche. Cámaros verdes (1947) is his best poetry book. In this book, he shows a new view of metrics using different strophes and rhyme. De día a día (1960) is a collection of poems he had been writing for thirty years. In 1961, the year of his death, he published Lanza de soledá. It is a collection of sonnets where he talks about life, death and the passage of time. That same year he published Nenias where he expresses his obsession about death, which is almost a premonition. Leva o seu cantare (1964) is a posthumous book. It was published because of the homage his friends paid to him. It is a collection of poems that had not been included in previous volumes. He was also an essayist, critic and lexicographer. He collaborated in many newspapers and in Spanish and foreign magazines.

 Other Interesting Aspects

The Galician Academy dedicated him ?O Día das Letras Galegas? (The Day of the Galcian Letters) in 1986.