Ramón López Velarde

Ramón López Velarde (June 15, 1888 – June 19, 1921) was a Mexican poet. His work was a reaction against French-influenced modernismo which, as an expression of a purely Mexican subject matter and emotional experience, is unique. He achieved great fame in his native land, to the point of being considered Mexico's national poet.

López Velarde was born in el Marecito, Tepetongo near Jerez de García Salinas, Zacatecas. He was the first of nine children of José Guadalupe López Velarde, a lawyer from Jalisco, and Trinidad Berumen Llamas, who came from a local landowning family. José, after an unsuccessful law career, had founded a Catholic school in Jerez. In 1900, Ramón was sent to a seminary in Zacatecas, where he remained for two years; later, when his family moved, he transferred to a seminary in Aguascalientes. In 1905 he abandoned the seminary in favor of a career in the law.

During his years in the seminary, Velarde had spent his holidays in Jerez. During one of these trips, he met Josefa de los Ríos, a distant relative eight years his senior, who made a deep impression on him. The earliest poem ascribed to Velarde, "Fuensanta" (1905) is believed to have been inspired by her.

In 1906 he collaborated on the literary review Bohemio, published in Aguascalientes by some of his friends, under the pseudonym of "Ricardo Wencer Olivares". The Bohemio group sided with Manuel Caballero, a Catholic Integralist opposed to literary modernism, during the controversy surrounding the 1907 reappearance of the polemical Revista Azul. However, their intervention had no appreciable effect on Mexican literary culture.

In January 1908 Velarde began his law studies at the University of San Luis Potosí. Soon after, his father died, leaving the family, which had returned to Jerez, in a desperate financial situation. Thanks to the support of his maternal uncles, Velarde was able to continue his studies. He continued to collaborate on various publications in Aguascalientes (El Observador, El Debate, Nosotros) and later in Guadalajara (El Regional, Pluma y Lápiz). Bohemia had ceased to exist by 1907.

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