Ida Gramcko
Ida Gramcko was a notable Venezuelan poet, playwright, and journalist, born on October 11, 1924, in Puerto Cabello, Carabobo. She began writing poetry at a remarkably young age and published her first collection, *Umbral: Poemas*, at just fifteen. Gramcko's poetic style has been characterized as "baroque," featuring dramatic juxtapositions and mythic interpretations of reality. Over her prolific career, she produced a wide array of works, including poetry, essays, and children's plays, and received numerous prestigious literary awards, such as the Venezuelan National Prize for Literature in 1977.
Despite facing a psychological crisis in her early years, which influenced her writing, her later works transitioned towards themes of mystical religiosity. Gramcko was also a pioneer in journalism, becoming the first female editor of the Venezuelan newspaper *El Nacional*. After a brief time in the Soviet Union as the Venezuelan ambassador, where her poetry gained international recognition through translation, she returned to Venezuela, where she continued to write and teach until her death on May 2, 1994. Her literary contributions remain significant in Venezuelan literature, with her works being celebrated for their depth and emotional resonance.
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Subject Terms
Ida Gramcko
Playwright and Poet
- Born: October 11, 1924
- Birthplace: Puerto Cabello, Carabobo, Venezuela
- Died: May 2, 1994
- Place of death: Caracas, Venezuela
Biography
According to one critic, the poetry of Ida Gramcko “constitutes a monument to poetic language”; her work is often described as “baroque” due to its dramatic juxtapositions and mythic distortions of reality. Gramcko was born on October 11, 1924, in Puerto Cabello, Carabobo, Venezuela, one of two daughters of Elsa Margarita Cortina and Enrique José Gramcko; her sister, Elsa, became an artist. Gramcko received little formal education until later in her life, but wrote her first poetry as a three-year-old. Throughout her early life, she read widely in Spanish poetry, and she began publishing her own poems in 1939, when she was only fifteen. Three years later, Gramcko published her first collection, Umbral: Poemas (1942), for which she won the Inter-American Cultural Association Prize. In 1943, she became the first female editor of the Venezuelan newspaper El Nacional.
For the rest of her life, Gramcko maintained a steady stream of collections, journalism, plays, and other writings, beginning in 1944 with her second poetry volume, Cámara de cristal: Poemas por Ida Gramcko Cielo. In 1945, she married Spanish journalist José de Benavides, and in 1948, moved to the Soviet Union as the Venezuelan ambassador. There her poetry was translated into Russian and French; she also wrote a children’s play, “La hija de Juan Palomo” (the daughter of Juan Palomo), which was published in a 1955 edition of La vara mágica (first edition, 1948). However, Gramcko did not remain long in the Soviet Union; in November of 1948, she returned to Venezuela and published Poemas, 1947-1952 (1952). She also worked on what would eventually become almost two hundred studies of Venezuelan artists for the Ministry of Foreign Relations.
Gramcko finished her secondary education, graduating from the Central University of Venezuela in 1968 with a degree in philosophy, and began teaching there and at several other colleges. Throughout her studies, she had been tormented by a psychological crisis expressed in Poemas de una psicótica (poems of a psychotic woman, 1964). However, she had also been winning several major awards, including the Caracas Ateneo Theater Prize (1956), the Central University of Venezuela Theater Prize (1958), the José Rafael Pocaterra Prose Prize (1957) and Poetry Prize (1961), the Municipal Poetry Prize (1963 and 1972), and the Venezuelan National Prize for Literature (1977). During the time of her psychological crisis, Gramcko had expressed an unstable and frenzied eroticism in her poetry; now, entering into the 1970’s, her work took on a mystical religiosity with the erotic elements virtually absent. Gramcko described her own view of her life in 1972 in the poetic autobiographical work Tonta de capirote (real dumb). Her works were eventually collected in volumes such as Poética (1983) and Poesía, narrativa, teatro, ensayo, 1989-1990 (1993).
Gramcko’s last published collection was Treno: Poemas (1993); her Obras teatrales was published posthumously in 1996. She died on May 2, 1994, at the age of sixty-nine, working on a collection of short stories.