Chronicle of a Life Written by Hand
The scene is intimate, almost domestic. On a calm afternoon in a peculiar September, as if suspended in time, a man sits by a window, turns on his computer, and writes. There is no audience, no ceremony, no announcement. Only the intense emotion of sharing a few words. That is how Versos al vuelo. Antología poética 2008-2025 (“Verses in Flight. Poetic Anthology, 2008-2025”), the personal blog of Rafael Lizarazo, was born—without any suspicion that such a small gesture would eventually become the starting point of a literary journey that today reaches eighteen years and is celebrated in the form of a book.
As important things often are, it all began quietly. One poem was published, then another. Over time came readers, comments, and connections. The words began to fly and, like faithful birds, returned to the nest. From that journey emerges Versos al vuelo, a work that does not merely compile poems and short narratives but preserves the memory of a life written step by step, verse by verse, and that, through language, exalts and safeguards cultural values.
The book is, above all, a vital testimony. In its pages one can sense the passage of time, the transformations of the man who writes, the gratitude for encounters, and the certainty that poetry remains a form of intimate resistance. For Lizarazo, writing was never a solitary act: it was always an inner conversation, reflective companionship, and a surrender to language. Each text retains something of the moment in which it was written, as if words had a memory of their own.
One of the poems that best captures this spirit is the sonnet Mis alas (“My Wings”). There, the poet affirms that he does not need wings to fly: the breeze of freedom and a piece of sky are enough to cast his words into the wind. Flight is both a metaphor and destiny. The verses depart like migratory birds, seek readers, rest in others’ gazes, and continue their journey. In that classically crafted sonnet, Lizarazo’s poetics are distilled: formal rigor, clear language, and a deep trust in the power of the word.
Rafael Humberto Lizarazo Goyeneche: an engineer who transforms the precision of numbers into poetic rhythm.
Speaking with Lizarazo is like encountering a great storyteller. The conversation flows easily: it moves from his poems to the pilgrimages of his grandparents and to his work experiences on the railway. He also recalls the changes experienced in schools across various towns, the result of his mother’s work as a teacher. All these experiences have had a significant impact on his extensive body of work.
Born in the city that is a pillar of Colombia’s steel industry, Paz de Río, Boyacá, Lizarazo is an engineer by profession and a writer by vocation. Just as engineering taught him to think in terms of structures, tensions, and resistance, writing allowed him to discover that words, too, require calculation, rhythm, and balance in order to stand. Each poem seems like a bridge between technical precision and creative intuition, as if the steel that shaped his early environment, over the years, had been transformed into a language capable of sustaining and revealing the invisible.
His work is rooted in classical and neoclassical tradition, but it draws directly from popular culture. Sonnets, couplets, rural tunes, and short narratives coexist in a style that does not abandon form, yet remains closely tied to place. In 2018, he introduced the Lizara-Rima, a poetic structure of his own creation—composed of 16 lines distributed across five stanzas—which combines classical rhyme, meter, and rhythm, and culminates in a final stanza that integrates previous lines to close the poem with coherence and meaning, as a way of continuing to explore the possibilities of verse without breaking from tradition.
This formal exploration coexists with a constant commitment to regional culture. Lizarazo is the founder of Lizararte, Arte and Cultura, an initiative through which he has promoted the memory, knowledge, and artistic expressions of Boyacá. This commitment becomes especially visible in Sonsoneteando cantas, a collective work born in the classroom and the community. The book brings together texts created by students from fourth to seventh grade at the Institución Educativa Nueva Generación in Sáchica, as the result of a workshop on popular poetry and rural music led by the poet years ago. There, poetry ceases to be an academic exercise and becomes play, song, and belonging.
In pieces such as Canto a Sáchica, written in the rhythm of carranga—a folkloric and danceable musical genre originating in Colombia’s Andean region—children speak about their church, their crops, their food, Muisca culture, and even the dinosaurs that once inhabited the region. The voice is clear and sincere. Under the poet’s guidance, words become a celebration of one’s own place and a tool for naming the world. In this context, poetry does not decorate: it builds identity.
Personal memory also occupies a central place in Versos al vuelo. In the poem El niño de Linares, Lizarazo returns to his school years and to the discovery of a voice that marked him forever: that of the Spanish singer Raphael. Through a jotabé—a modern neoclassical poetic structure of 11 hendecasyllabic lines with consonant rhyme, created by the Spanish poet and novelist Juan Benito Rodríguez Manzanares—the poet pays tribute to the performer who accompanied his youth and remains present in his maturity. The poem is an expression of gratitude, remembrance, and proof that music, like poetry, can accompany a person throughout an entire lifetime.
In addition to his work as a writer, Lizarazo has maintained an active presence in the literary life of Boyacá. He has served as General Secretary of the Boyacá Writers’ Association, a member of the Editorial Council of Boyacá Authors, and ambassador of the Jotabé rhyme in Colombia. He is also an International Ambassador of the Gaonesa, a neoclassical poetic form—specifically a twelve-line stanza—created by the Ecuadorian poet Edwin Antonio Gaona Salinas. His work has been recognized in national and international competitions held in Colombia, Spain, Ecuador, Chile, Argentina, Mexico, and the United States.
His texts circulate in cultural magazines, newspapers, and both print and digital anthologies. He has served as a judge, speaker, and workshop leader at festivals and conferences, bringing poetry to diverse settings: from formal auditoriums to rural schools and community gatherings. Always with the same conviction: words are meant to be shared.
Versos al vuelo is, in this sense, a logbook. It records not only poems, but moments of life. It is the story of a blog that became a book, of a voice that found resonance, of a body of writing that chose to remain faithful to tradition while continuing to engage with the present. Lizarazo’s blog is varied and includes a wide body of rural and traditional poetry dedicated to Boyacá, which the author plans to gather in a possible second volume of Versos al vuelo.
In times of haste and noise, Rafael Lizarazo’s work invites us to pause—to listen to the rhythm of measured verse, to recognize the value of memory, and to return to poetry as a space of encounter. His verses continue to fly, like birds that know the way back and always find a reader willing to open the nest.
Bibliography:
- Lizarazo Goyeneche, R.H. (n.d.) VERSOS AL VUELO [Blog]. Available at: https://misversos-rahulig.blogspot.com/
- Juan Benito Rodríguez Manzanares (n.d.) Biografía. Available at: https://www.juan-benito.com/biografia.htm
- Sainz Angulo, M.P. (2025) Gaonesa Doble Rima, 18 Mayo 2025. Available at: https://maripazsainz.com/2025/05/18/gaonesa-doble-rima/
- Lizarazo Goyeneche, R.H. (2023) La poesía se reinventa, 17 Agosto 2023. Available at: https://misversos-rahulig.blogspot.com/2023/08/la-poesia-se-reinventa.html
- Lizara Rima: estructura poética Lizara. Available at: https://lizarartearteycultura.blogspot.com/p/lizara-rima-estructura-poetica-lizara.html?m=1
