José María Iparraguirre Balerdi was born on 12 August 1820 in Urretxu, Gipuzkoa, in the Basque Country, and died on 6 April 1881 in Itsaso, near his native district. He occupies an unusual and enduring place in Basque cultural history: he was at once a poet, singer, guitarist, wandering performer, Carlist veteran, exile, emigrant, and popular symbol. His fame rests above all on “Gernikako Arbola” (“The Tree of Gernik…
“God forbid that any bloody struggle should come to darken our picturesque mountains with mourning; let every good Spaniard refrain from taking up arms, whether in the Carlist or the republican cause.”
Neighbourhood:
Folk & Ballad Poets, Love Poets, Poet-Musicians, Political Poets, Social Justice Poets
Emotional landscape: Spirituality, Joy, Peace
Amastan Ag Mohamed, conventionally dated c. 1803–1878 in modern retellings, occupies an unusual and revealing place in the imaginative history of Saharan literature. He is not a historically documented nineteenth-century Tuareg poet in the ordinary biographical sense. Rather, he is a fictional figure created to give a personal face to the cultural world from which traditional Tuareg desert poetry emerges. The name, t…
Neighbourhood:
Folk & Ballad Poets, Mystical & Spiritual Poets, Nature Poets, Persian Mystic Poets
Emotional landscape: Longing, Spirituality, Sorrow
