Lydia Yanel
Toledo (EFE) and not only remain in childhood but are part of life to the end: we come into the world wrapped in words and poetry is the beginning of language.
On the occasion of World Poetry Day, which is celebrated every March 21 since Unesco instituted it in 1999, Agencia EFE has spoken with two renowned authors of children’s literature, Estrella Ortiz (Guadalajara, 1959) and Sagrario Pinto (Talavera de la Reina, 1957), about the first literature that reaches the baby at birth and the books for the little ones.
“There aren’t usually any baby books that don’t have a rhyme because what we’re really doing is extending the resources of the tradition. The fact that it is rhymed produces a rhythmic ringing, a sonority, that attracts. Poetry is not something for adults; on the contrary, it is the beginning of language”, points out Ortiz, who explains that the connection with the newborn goes beyond the meaning of the words used.
“When you talk to a baby, they don’t understand you, but they listen to you. The bond that is established when that person who loves you speaks to you is essential. It’s not just talking to the baby but intonation also influences, those more melodic, slower words, ”she says.
At this point, Estrella Ortiz rescues a phrase from the librarian Blanca Calvo that she fully endorses: “we learn to read through our ears”.
“When practically everything is lost, what we received as children remains”
It is scientifically proven that reading aloud has many benefits for intelligence, happiness, health, communication and even success in life, as the American writer and essayist Meghan Cox maintains in her book ‘The magic of reading aloud’. high’.
“That cadence that literature has, especially poetry, to humans, in some way, puts our brains”, says Estrella Ortiza who, among many other works, is the author of ‘El Libro de los lullabies’ that in 2007 the Government of Castilla-La Mancha gave gifts to all newborns in the region, in 2021 the El Paso City Council reissued to give gifts to all babies on the island of La Palma, and it has just been (again) reissued by the City Council from Guadalajara.
Ortiz also cites the neuroscientist Oliver Sark who in his book ‘Musicofilia’ argued that when people have practically lost everything, whether due to extreme old age, accident or disease, what remains in them are those first samples of folklore they received when they were very little.
“This excites me a lot and encourages me to continue encouraging the fathers and mothers of today to make that little house of words for their children, a house that they will be able to inhabit throughout their lives. It seems to me something very beautiful, ”says the author.
“With words we begin to discover, imagine and create”
Sagrario Pinto, for his part, defends that poetry “has been part of our life since long before birth” because already in the mother’s womb “the measured rhythm of the heartbeat prepares the baby to be able to enjoy the rhythmic musicality of the lullabies”.
And he underlines that “we come into the world wrapped in words” and with words “we begin to recognize the world, to discover, imagine and create everything that surrounds us”.
Pinto assures that “the capacity for surprise when discovering a new word and the subsequent memory of that word serves to develop memory, which is, despite the bad reputation that has sometimes been attached to it, the heart of learning”, and The thread of this reflection adds that “the old educational practice of learning poems by heart, trying to understand them and being able to recite them in front of others should continue to be present in the classroom.”
This author, who in addition to poetry, novels and plays for children has published school materials for Infants and Primary, believes that poetry fulfills another important function, that of “making us aware of the importance of language, of the power that words have in our lives and how we should learn to use them”, since “in addition to being the most effective way of communicating with others, they are the best tool to get to know ourselves”.
In this regard, he points out that poetry “helps to develop a kind of inner voice whose formation is decisive in the processes of personal maturity, in the conquest of one’s own autonomy of thought and, ultimately, in the search for an unmanipulated sense of self.” freedom”.
Lullabies of great authors: García Lorca, 1928
Lullabies are a literary manifestation -for Estrella Ortiz “a small literary genre”- that have been used by great authors such as Federico García Lorca, Miguel Hernández, Gloria Fuertes, Gabriela Mistral or Goytisolo, among others.
On December 13, 1928, in the afternoon, García Lorca read a conference on Spanish lullabies at the Residencia de Estudiantes, which he later offered again in New York and Havana.
Lorca stressed in that text that melancholy pervades many of the lyrics of lullabies in Spain, contrary to what happens in other European countries.
Precisely, the writer titled that talk “Añada, nana, arrolo, vou veri vou” in reference to how lullabies are called in different parts of the country: añada in Asturian, arrolo in Galician, vou veri vou in the Balearic Islands. EFE