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Years ago, a young school girl, glancing up from her books, caught a sunbeam that, drifting through the window pane, produced an unexpected array of iridescent colors. In "Sobre la poesía," an essay written in 1997, the Colombian poet Meira Delmar, (bom Olga Chams Eljach), recalls this memorable experience. She confesses that at that moment she sensed that "la belleza, sinónimo de poesía,, puede habitar no sólo en el cielo, sino también en el sencillo recinto donde la maestra enseñaba a separar en sílabas las palabras" (Jaramillo et al 518).
Bom in Barranquilla of Lebanese parents, Delmar is considered the preeminent woman poet of Colombia. Her first published poems appeared under her pen name in the Cuban magazine Vanidades in 1937. Often ranked with the Chilean Nobel laureate Gabriela Mistral as well as with Delmira Agustini and Juana de Ibarbourou, she has published eight volumes of poetry, including a bilingual one in 1962, Poesía (Spanish/Italian). Her most recent publication is Alguien pasa (2000).
For several years she taught courses in the history of art and literature at the Universidad del Atlántico. In 1995 she retired after thirty-six years as the director of the Biblioteca Pública Departamental del Atlántico, which now bears her name. In 1985 twelve of her poems were set to music by Rodolfo Pérez, director of the Coral Tomás Luis Victoria of Medellin and performed by that group. The Corporación Universitaria de la Costa marked its thirtieth anniversary with the production of a CD, Antología Poética: Meira Delmar, on which she reads thirty-five of her poems, each section of which is introduced by a musical selection. The work closes with the poet reading "Huésped sin sombra," the poem in which she reveals her innermost thoughts.
In 1989 she was elected to the Academia Colombiana de la Lengua. Among others, her many honors also include an honorary doctorate in literature from the Universidad del Atlántico in 1971 and the "VI Premio Nacional de Poesía por Reconocimiento"...