The Rafael Cadenas National Youth Poetry Contest is an initiative that began in 2016 with Team Poetero and Venezuelan Authors; in 2018 the La Poeteca Foundation joined and in 2019 Banesco Banco Universal. Currently, it is the only contest that rewards poetic creation as a form of expression and a channel of communication for young people with their environment, in addition to promoting the reading of Venezuelan poetry.
The Rafael Cadenas National Youth Poetry Contest, organized by La Poeteca, Autores Venezolanos, Team Poetero and Banesco, already has winners. “En los dominios del alba” by Felipe Manuel Ezeiza Briceño, 24 years old and residing in Los Teques in Miranda state, was the winning poem of the 2023 edition of the contest.
The jury also awarded second and third place prizes, as well as two honorable mentions, and selected 16 finalists. Currently, this is the only contest that rewards the poetic creation of young people and encourages the reading of Venezuelan authors.
Banesco Universal Bank, whose Corporate Social Responsibility policy has as its pillars the promotion of education, health and financial inclusion of Venezuelans, published the verdict of the Eighth Rafael 2023 National Young Poetry Contest, one of the most important recognition for young poetry creators from the country.
The first prize went to “En los dominios del alba” by Felipe Manuel Ezeiza Briceño, 24 years old and residing in Los Teques in Miranda state. In the words of the jury, the winning poem stood out “for its adherence to a language that knows how to combine verbal containment and metaphor, in a framework that indicates a close relationship with the landscape (in this case, arid) and turns it into origin”. .
This is a moment of great joy for those of us who make up this team. For Banesco, once again, it is an honor to deliver this verdict. There are more than 2,500 young people who have submitted their applications in these eight editions. I thank the jury for this laborious decision
*Read also: Banesco published the memories of the city with 40 chronicles in the book Caracas 455
Second place was awarded to the poem “Conversación de sobremesa” by César Ernesto Torres Barilla, 29 years old and from the state of Mérida. “For making digression a virtue, since it functions as the network that allows a form of communion with the environment and its objects. The proposed adventure reproduces the mobility of the spider and converts that identification into a feature that does not deny the annoyance or ignore the possible epiphany ”, reads the verdict.
Third place went to “Enredadera a mosgo”, written by Alma Romero Stephany, who lives in Caracas and is 25 years old. The jury considers that the text resolves in a valuable way the metaliterary tension that arises from the first verse: “The awareness of language gives the poem depth because it establishes a link between language, the family tree and a context of difficulty and illness” .
honorable mentions
Honorable mentions went to the poems “The Harpy Eagle Died” and “The Weight of My Flesh.” The first was written by Erickson José Bautista Espejo, he is 30 years old and is a Venezuelan residing in Spain. The second is from Carlés Soriana Brito Durán, who is 24 years old and lives in Puerto La Cruz.
Likewise, the jury selected 16 poems that, together with the first three places and the two honorable mentions, will form part of the printed anthology of the Eighth Rafael Cadenas National Youth Poetry Contest. The three winning poems will receive: $250 (first place), $200 (second place) and $150 (third place).
*Read also: Banesco presents “new country of theater” at FLOC
This annual contest pays tribute to the 93-year-old Venezuelan poet Rafael Cadenas, who was awarded the Cervantes Prize in 2022, the highest literary recognition in Spanish. Cadenas is the first Venezuelan to whom they give this distinction. In 2018 he received the Reina Sofía Award for Ibero-American Poetry.
The Rafael Cadenas National Youth Poetry Contest is an initiative that began in 2016 with Team Poetero and Venezuelan Authors; in 2018 the La Poeteca Foundation joined and in 2019 Banesco Banco Universal.
Currently, it is the only contest that rewards poetic creation as a form of expression and a channel of communication for young people with their environment, and also encourages the reading of Venezuelan poetry. In its eight editions, more than 2,500 young people have participated, with 223 finalists, 25 first places and 10 honorable mentions.
The jury for this edition was made up of the Venezuelan poets Luis Moreno Villamediana and Gina Saraceni, and the Spanish writer and poet María Ángeles Pérez López. They decided between 286 postulated texts with themes oriented to love relationships, their complexity and loss; the sense of isolation and defeat; the fragmentation of the body, its metamorphoses and pathologies; family life, insilio and migration.
Post Views: 244
