He opened the doors of his home and his family to me; he gave me the gift of his friendship; he dedicated one of his books (Toast), which I prologued for him; he ended up being one of those people who are missed when they physically disappear. The Valdepeñero Paco Creis, one of his closest confidants, pointed out three traits of his character that are worth taking into account: purity in love, clarity in faith and cleanliness in his ideals; three traits that define him humanly and spiritually and, besides being an excellent and prolific poet, we had him for a close, lively, enthusiastic person, one of those that are worth frequenting. His home -especially that Madrid room surrounded by books and paintings that constituted his office- was the setting for many gatherings where the reading of verses, both his own and those of the other guests, flowed like wine in an endless feast.
In perfect consonance, therefore, they were united in López Anglada her kindness, her cordiality, her ability to listen and, of course, her poetic creativity. Within the latter, there is a subtle thread that configures her: naturalness. From it, she was able to approach any subject, giving it lyrical consistency. In a special way, spousal love stands out, present throughout her literary trajectory, although perhaps it is convenient to broaden the thematic arc to everything that surrounded her: his children, his homeland, his military profession, his city of birth (Ceuta), the town of Fontiveros (where his remains are buried together with those of Maruja, his wife), Burgohondo (Ávila), his favorite authors (Saint Teresa of Jesus, Saint John of the Cross, Antonio Machado, Gerardo Diego), his friends and, without a doubt, God, to whom he sang on multiple occasions in a sparkling manner as a continuous presence in his personal life, particularly visible in Territory of the dreamwith which he won the Fernando Rielo World Prize for Mystical Poetry in 1995: a book of maturity, written almost in the "slum of old age", as Jorge Manrique would say, but fresh, exciting, full of luminosity, with the wise experience of one who knows that "life must be filled with hope".
Poetic autobiography
It is, in fact, his own biography, in the hustle and bustle of age, to which he constantly sings, as if existence were a "today is always still" in the Machadian saying. And he is seen in love, writing one of the most joyful, neat, passionate and beautiful love stories of post-war Spanish poetry, where the beloved has her own name or is called "friend", or "my love", or is a continuous reference to which he appeals incessantly; and so, she inspires him a sonnet as well as an ode, because she is: "my love".the struggle that lifts / the soul from the sand and the body from the hours" and, since he has known her, "only this orchard / of snow and lilies surrounded / where you, exact and unique, / complete the destiny taking me to tomorrow / matters.". Poetry all of it integral, pundonorosa, optimistic, of the most exalted of the contemporary lyric, of the one that moves to the gratitude to God for so encouraging source of inspiration. And it is here, precisely here, in his love poems, where a large part of his most inspired verses are contained
And next to the beloved -the fruit of mutual love- the children. From the firstborn: "petal almost, small, / but present, / continuing my life / foreverto the one who devotes herself to the craft of pottery: "...".One of my daughters is a potter. Know this, friends; with her hands she takes / the clay and makes me a dove (...)"; passing through the experience of the first eight descendants, whom she celebrates in inspired sonnets in "Redondel de los ocho niños" ("Roundel of the eight children")"or by the contemplation of the whole of its offspring: "Earth and love my offspring; / earth for pain and light that burned / to light the dark places / where today you are and everything is already white, / where today the earth is childlike and pure, / where today God and I see you, my children.". Undoubtedly, samples of poems in favor of his progeny are not lacking.
At the same time, his friends -poets and painters stand out- are another of his preferences. As the compositions he writes to them are frequent, I will not focus on any specific one. Without theories, without abstract approaches, in each of them he shows his persevering cult to friendship with commendable, emotional texts, attentive to draw from others, in the words of Pedro Salinas, "his best you".
Territory of the dream
However, as I have already pointed out, God is his most intense intimate experience. In general, in his first poems he sings of him or names him by linking him to his beloved. It will be with the passing of the years when his presence becomes more solid, direct, raw and flaming; sometimes threaded with the theme of death. Territory of the dream is, in this sense, as I have already said, his great religious poetry book. Although he has published other books in which he fervently approaches specific events in the biography of Saint John or Saint Teresa of Jesus, or relives in versified form the unforgettable visit he made with his wife to Holy Land in 1983, it is only in this collection of poems that he reaches his deepest expression of his approach to God. Thus, the volume is presented in principle as a succession of disquieting, interrogative poems, in which the Calderonian idea prevails that this life is possibly a dream -the real one will be the one that comes later: eternal life-. Whether it is or not, he is not driven to pessimism, to desolation, but to the conviction -it is confirmed time and time again- that God is on his side: "You, by my side, listening to me"and that the mere fact of thinking about him is more than enough to confirm his existence: "I am not a man, I am a woman.I think, therefore you exist"This consideration should not be understood as a projection of his own conscience but as a reality different from himself, to whom he addresses himself fundamentally with the appellative "Lord". Thus, the poems follow one after the other in a dialogical manner, going through some of the most pressing concerns of his vital trajectory: his children, his inner despairs or the verification of his own existence in the world.
Temporariness
These first texts are followed by a curious section full of surrealist images, "Parables", made up of five poems of very different orientations but with a common thread: temporality as the place where the existence of human beings is forged and where dreams, hopes, joys and even the thought of another possible future life can be found. This section is followed by "Exit to the light": four compositions equally written in a complex, rapturous atmosphere, with an almost Lorca-like flavor, in which different episodes framed in the poet's childhood, in his battle with words and in his eagerness to discover points of light to which to cling,
The end of the Territory of the dream is formed by the section "Face to Face": nine sonnets of Eucharistic flavor - wisely constructed, emotional, confidential, very much in the line of Anglada's poetry, but delicious as falsillas for prayer - which once again reveal the poet loaded with humanity and simplicity that López Anglada was, convinced that "to live is tomorrow", which is why he leaves written in a magnificent poem of The hand on the wall -also with splendid religious texts.–: "My heart remembers that to live is tomorrow, / (...) My soul, / everything is ready. Don't miss me tomorrow". With this in mind, he lived to the fullest.
