n order to talk about the poet Roberto Díaz you have to dive into the deep questioning referred to what poetry is. And, of course, we have to analyze, precisely, the oeuvre of the poet at issue. His fame is not just a made-up story but a well-built poem because it is anchored on the respect and the admiration of some of his peers. He is also highly regarded by researchers and dabblers of the popular poetry found in the music that is truly Argentine such as tangos or criollo movements like the ones written by Homero Manzi, Cátulo Castillo, Homero Expósito, Enrique Cadícamo, Ariel Petrocelli, Armando Tejada Gómez, Manuel Castilla, or Hamlet Lima Quintana, for example, that belong to the fortunate, long list of creators that also touched the soul of the people without commercial gimmicks.

We think that Roberto exhibits a natural poetry, without artful devices, without imitations. His verses depict representative elements, his line is surrealist, however, he describes every thing that any sensitive being perceives. Sadness is not a distressing sadness. Nostalgia and memories are not instruments to go back to the past, they are tools for rescuing experiences and sublimate them in the present. He turns any unreal thing into something tangible because he captures it from reality. The results of his social approaches are mirrors of a cruel reality that the poet writes and describes. However, he never descends into a crude partisan pamphlet, he touches the reader because it is a humanist reflection.

Things are, not in his direct words, there are no catalogues, they are concrete because they are attached to experiences and, especially when they depict feelings, the latter possess their own patience according to the point of view, the lucid vision of the writer and, in the use of the language that is quite beautiful, artistic, the poet is revealed.

As far as technique is concerned, which can be formally analyzed, it has no tricks. It is clear, it formally possesses the charm that comes from the intimate self of the writer. His capacity is recognized by the knowledge of international boards that awarded our bard. Realism and idealism are blended in his writing because the search for beauty is a constant feature for this artist. We can find it in every daily thing, beloved ones, places, characters, city, common man... even wind is visible.

Death has cotton wrappers, refined scents and the figure of the being that is not blurred (his grandfather, for example) appear with every whisper, every moan, every emotion, every joy of life...

He is not a strident poet, he looks for dreams that intoxicate like wine, but the potion is used as a steam element for evasion, like gastric juice. Such is the allusion to wine in “La última curda” by Cátulo Castillo or Hamlet Lima Quintana’s in “Si duele mi presencia”.

The poems written by Roberto possess harmony, rhythm, balanced proportions, light us with colors, lull us with sounds, shape their own world line by line with a language about the real world according to what we get from their messages. If we read poets like Roberto Díaz is because one finds in their lines the thoughts, the anxiety, the anger we cannot aptly express by lacking the gift God gave them.

In Díaz everything derives from his inner core, and he develops it with no hurry. Don’t neglect beauty! He agrees with Rainer María Rilke that in the dawn of the twentieth century wrote his Letter to a young poet (between 1903 and 1908) and in The artist and patience he points out: «Being an artist is: Don’t calculate and don’t count. You have to ripe like the tree that does not hasten up its sap and that it is, with confidence, in the springtime storm without anguish of fearing the impossibility of not reaching one more summer...» In another he guides him about «That loneliness for the creator» and that «children are always what you were as a child...» and so we see Díaz reflected in each one of his poems.

He is far from intellectualism because that is not his objective, his target is communication, whether it is achieved by a book of pure poetry or by placing his poetry in a popular song, beyond any kind of airing or organized promotion. We, the tango fans, think he is more strongly highlighted, maybe, if he is coupled with the musical strains of tango, because its cadences are felt in each line, in contents and shape, with the proper song for the genre.

Editor’s Note:
He was born in the city of Avellaneda in the province of Buenos Aires in 1938. He was sub-director of the La Ciudad newspaper of Avellaneda until 2003 and translator of English language. He has published ten books of poetry and his literary work appears in numerous anthologies of our country and abroad.

He collaborated in a lot tangos of Reynaldo Martín, the musician's author.

He was awarded on several occasions. Some examples: at the Primer Premio Carabela de Oro in Barcelona, Spain; award by the Italian magazine Silarus; Premio Internacional de Prensa Rigoberto Cabezas in San José de Costa Rica; Special Mentions at the Municipal and National Awards for Poetry and Award to the Best Columnist on Subjects of General Interest in 1998 by the Consejo Profesional de Ciencias Económicas of the province of Buenos Aires. He was also awarded for his wordsmith work in tango.