José María Millares Sall, Poet

Las Palmas de Gran Canaria · Category: Literature · Subcategory: Literary street map

José María Millares Sall (Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, 1921-2009) was entirely self taught in drawing, music and poetry, highlighting his ability in all these disciplines. It would be poetry, however, that the author would contribute greatly to Canary art, being a precedent to what would become social poetry. José María Millares was a fine poet who already understood in the 1940s that any cries for freedom should be done from the option of free speech. Even as a young author, he was able to innovate with new cutting edge genres in 1949 and 1950, raising the profile of poetic language which —barring a few exceptions— would take many years to develop on the Spanish literature scene, with a few stutterings in the 1950s, and, especially, those corresponding to the 1960s and 1970s. If the importance of these writings were to be measured among its readers, it would be virtually non-existent, as the poet himself stressed, as the strangeness of Liverpool and Ronda de luces meant very few copies were actually printed.

José María Millares Sall is one of the multitalented creative minds in the Millares family, to whom some artistic and cultural styles concur, which different members have developed over more than two centuries. Other highlights, apart from poetry, are the musical compositions and paintings, activities in which he excelled from a very young age.

«You can see that my mouth is still in my face,
and that my tongue is not a wool bullet on a spring,
and my belly is not swollen by wine
and my hands have not yet caressed the breasts of your women,
and my hammer lips have still not kissed their sweaty bodies.»

(Liverpool)

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