Cristian Gómez Olivares, CWRU associate professor of Spanish

Cristian Gómez Olivares, associate professor of Spanish, recently received a poetry award at the Premio FILLT de Poesía 2020, or the first Latino and Latin American Book Fair 2020, at Tufts University in Boston. As winner, his collection of poems, “La pérdida de las colonias de ultramar” (“Loss of the overseas territories”) will be published in April by Axiara Editions. 

Gómez Olivares’s short collection is a meditation on the different forms of estrangement, and how alienation becomes an everyday way of life. It is also his personal take on political poetry. The jury for the prize was composed of three prolific poets, José Kozer, Roger Santiváñez and León Félix Battista.

The judges wrote: “Loss of the overseas territories” knows how to navigate the different tones that the poems express, tones that are held together through a very clear control and discipline. … This is a mature and very cultured poet, totally aware of the poetical trade, and willing to make it an essential part of his own existence.”

An April awards ceremony has been postponed until Fall 2020.