Evaristo Ribera Chevremont
Evaristo Ribera Chevremont was a prominent Puerto Rican poet and literary figure, born in San Juan to a Spanish father and a Puerto Rican mother. He began his education in local schools before working in a factory at fifteen, during which he cultivated a deep passion for literature, influenced by classical authors and European modernists. His literary career took off with the publication of his first poetry collection, "Romantic Parade," in 1914, and he became a key literary editor and critic in the years that followed. After spending several years in Spain, he returned to Puerto Rico, where he played a crucial role in fostering avant-garde movements like Noísmo and Atalayismo, emphasizing creative freedom in poetry.
Chevremont was known for his poignant sonnets and diverse poetic forms, often focusing on themes central to Puerto Rican identity and nature. His notable works include "Los almendros del Paseo Covadonga," "Color," and "Tonos y formas," the latter being regarded as a high point in his literary output. Celebrated as one of Puerto Rico's greatest lyric poets of the twentieth century, he left a rich legacy of nearly thirty poetic collections, blending personal expression with cultural reflection. Through his writings and editorial work, Chevremont significantly influenced Puerto Rican literature and inspired generations to embrace lyrical artistry.
On this Page
Subject Terms
Evaristo Ribera Chevremont
Puerto Rican-born poet
- Born: February 16, 1890
- Birthplace: San Juan, Puerto Rico
- Died: March 1, 1976
- Place of death: San Juan, Puerto Rico
Ribera Chevremont, known as the “Poet of the Sea,” was one of the greatest Puerto Rican poets of the twentieth century. His verse, which is reflective and idealistic, was called “metaphysical” and “religious.” Ribera Chevremont is noted for his poetic experimentation and his mastery of the sonnet as an effective medium to communicate both modernist and postmodernist ideas of the literary art.
Early Life
Evaristo Ribera Chevremont (eh-vah-REES-toh rih-BEH-rah chehv-reh-MOHNT) was born in San Juan to Cesáreo Rivera Soto, of Santiago, Spain, and Mercedes Chevremont, a Puerto Rican. Ribera Chevremont attended Lincoln Elementary School, Moczó High School, and the Ibero-American Center in San Juan. At the age of fifteen, he went to work in a factory and, at night, engaged in intensive reading of the Ribadeneyra Collection of classic literature, especially the works of Antonio Machado, Charles Darwin, Plato, and the Spanish Generation of ’98. Between 1912 and 1913, Ribera Chevremont published extensively in the form of poems, short stories, and literary criticism in journals such as Puerto Rican Enlightenment, Puerto Rico Illustrated, Carnival, and Antilles Journal. Ribera Chevremont garnered critical acclaim with the publication of his first collection of poems, Romantic Parade (1914).
He became the editor of The Impartial in 1918 and in the following year won a grant from the Spanish Cultural Center to go to Spain, where he would remain from 1920 to 1924. During this time Ribera Chevremont made many connections with literary figures and was exposed to the vanguard movements in European literatures. In 1919, he published El templo de los albastros, as well as other books of verse that remained unedited and unpublished for many decades, including El hondero lanzó la piedra (1975). Another collection of Ribera Chevremont’s poems from this time, La copa del Hebe (1922),is one of the finest examples of the poet’s verse, which shows some influence from the European modernists.
Life’s Work
Ribera Chevremont returned to Puerto Rico in 1924, proclaiming the stagnancy of poetry in Europe and his home island and encouraging experimentation and a renovation of the poetic art. Through his inspiration, a number of avant-garde movements took root in Puerto Rico, including, in the opinion of most critics, two of the most influential: Noísmo, which sought to remove all limits from creative expression, and Atalayismo, which promoted experimentation. In 1926, began to publish Poliedro, a literary magazine that appeared every Saturday. In the next year, Ribera Chevremont began to write a weekly column, the “Vanguard Page,” which appeared in the magazine Democracy and which was to become one of the great sites of cultural exchange between Europe and Puerto Rico. The column gave Ribera Chevremont a regular outlet to affect public thought and opinion in literary questions. These innovative and authoritative writings in the column came to exercise enormous influence in intellectual circles throughout the island. Ribera Chevremont was celebrated for his virtuosity in writing sonnets, many of them dealing with the themes of the Puerto Rican homeland, nature, love, and the sea. He scorned the elaborate and, in his opinion, overly fabricated verse forms of the European modernists and advocated the creation of a more personal and authentic poetry. His 1928 collection, Los almendros del Paseo Covadonga, in which the poet uses traditional poetic forms such as the silva (unlimited verses of seven and eleven syllables with consonantal rhyme) and the romance (unlimited verses of eight syllables with assonantal rhyme), shows the influence of Ribera Chevremont’s time in Spain. His next two collections, Pajarera (1929) and La hora del orifice (1929), give evidence of modernist influence. In his 1930 elegy Tierra y sombra, written upon the death of his sister, Ribera Chevremont returned to more traditional forms. Color, his 1938 masterpiece, is a collection of highly creative verse in which the poet returns to his quest for originality by incorporating elements from the Parnassian school of nineteenth-century French poetry into his verse.
In Tonos y formas (1943), believed by many critics to be his finest collection, Ribera Chevremont explores the intimate relationship between the form of the Spanish language—its words—and their harmonious interplay in verse. Awarded “Best Work of the Year” by the Institute of Puerto Rican Literature, Anclas de oro (1945) is Ribera Chevremont’s hymn to the beauty of nature: sea, sun, breeze, and hills. In all, his poetic collections number some twenty-nine books.
Significance
Ribera Chevremont is considered by many critics to be Puerto Rico’s greatest lyric poet of the twentieth century. Through his verse, his critical commentaries, and the literary publications he founded, he attracted several generations of Puerto Ricans to the cultivation of the lyric art. Ribera Chevremont has left a legacy of hundreds of creative and innovative poems that range from the deeply sentimental to the patriotic, the reflective, and the comic. His love of Puerto Rico’s natural beauty frequently shines forth in his verses, which are intimate and endearing.
Bibliography
Anderson Imbert, Enrique. Spanish American Literature: A History (Vol. II, 1910-1963). Translated by John V. Falconieri. Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1969. Anderson Imbert briefly studies Ribera Chevremont’s life and work in this classic reference history of Spanish-American literature.
Márquez, Roberto, ed. Puerto Rican Poetry: A Selection from Aboriginal to Contemporary Times. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 2007. Contains a selection of Ribera Chevremont’s poems, translated into English.
Unruh, Vicky. Latin American Vanguards: The Art of Contentious Encounters. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994. Unruh presents Ribera Chevremont briefly but captures the essential aspects of his project of poetic renovation.