Young Venezuelan Poet Wins National Contest, Champions Everyday Inspiration

Yoigler Hurtado, a 23-year-old lawyer and poet from Venezuela, has been awarded the 11th National Young Poetry Contest for his work "Ontology of the Errata." Organized by the La Poeteca Foundation, the competition saw 203 poems submitted, with a jury praising Hurtado's piece for its "profound and intelligent reflection on the poetic as error, as emptiness and inescapable silence." Hurtado, who resides in Cumaná, participated in a contest for the first time. He describes his approach to poetry not as a competition, but as a natural expression. "We have rarely competed in contests. Normally we write, but we don't write poetry to compete with anyone, but we wrote this poem precisely to participate and glory to God that we managed to win," he stated. His poetic inspiration stems from the ordinary and the visible aspects of daily life, shunning complex or inaccessible language. "His gaze does not seek artifice; he prefers to stop where life manifests itself without pretense. For him, beauty is not hidden in unattainable metaphors, but in the discreet miracle of everyday life. His poetics is a song to the common, an outstretched hand that shows that poetry has no senders: it belongs to everyone," the article describes. Born in Tucupita, Delta Amacuro, Hurtado's affinity for poetry began in childhood, nurtured by his grandmother, who was a cultural coordinator. He recalls daily rituals of memorizing and reciting poems, which sowed the seeds of a lifelong vocation. By the age of seven, he was already writing verses about nature. Beyond his literary pursuits, Hurtado identifies as a young revolutionary, a firm believer in the Bolivarian Revolution and the ideals of Simón Bolívar, regardless of who champions them. He often uses plural verb conjugations when discussing his ideological interests, suggesting a deep connection to the collective well-being of the people.

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We have rarely competed in contests. Normally we write, but we don't write poetry to compete with anyone, but we wrote this poem precisely to participate and glory to God that we managed to win.