Thursday, 1 October 2026

A Life Between Verses and Songs

 Fernando Cely Herrán, the Poet Who Writes, Composes, and Sings

On October 13, 2026, his birthday, Fernando Cely Herrán will release a remastered edition of his album “Songs for My New Colombia.” The date will bring together two celebrations: a life devoted to words, and an artist who writes the lyrics, composes the music, and performs his own songs.

The album was remastered by Surterráneo, led by his son Camilo Cely, a music and audiovisual producer. The release will reveal an essential dimension of his work: that of a musician who turns poetry into song. After more than four decades of creative work, Cely Herrán thus reaffirms that literature and music are not separate paths, but expressions of the same sensibility.

A poet, teacher, and cultural advocate, he has built his career with the perseverance of those who understand art as a way of inhabiting the world. Born in Bogotá, he explores love, loss, memory, and injustice in his poems and songs, sometimes through the intimacy of the bolero, and sometimes through a social awareness attuned to Colombia’s wounds.

Music, Another Way of Writing

 El padre de Fernando Cely decía que, de niño, su hijo era “una especie de sinfonía inconclusa”. La imagen resultó premonitoria. Aunque la poesía floreció primero y se convirtió en la expresión más visible de su vocación, la música nunca dejó de acompañarlo. Toca la guitarra y el teclado y suele compartir sus composiciones en tertulias y encuentros culturales.

En sus canciones asume tres oficios complementarios: escribe, compone y canta. El proceso suele comenzar con una emoción, una historia o una frase. La experiencia del poeta le permite reconocer la fuerza de una imagen y la música escondida en el lenguaje cotidiano. Después aparece la melodía, no como adorno, sino como una segunda escritura que amplía el sentido de los versos. Finalmente, su voz comunica los matices que dieron origen a cada pieza.

En 2010 publicó Cantos a mi Colombia nueva, un álbum de boleros y canciones de contenido social. Llevar ese proyecto a término significó cumplir una promesa hecha a su amigo, el compositor colombiano Jorge Villamil, quien lo había animado a dar a conocer su música. El disco reveló dos vertientes que continúan presentes en su trabajo: la sensibilidad romántica y la preocupación por la realidad colombiana.

“Fernando, promise me you won’t die without recording your songs. I believe your work brings something innovative and necessary to the landscape of new Colombian music.”
Musician and composer: Jorge Villamil Cordovez

 The new album renews that calling. By presenting the remastered edition on his birthday, the artist will celebrate his life by sharing songs born of his personal history and his way of seeing his country.

For Cely, “music is the lifeblood of poetry.” Words provide imagery, emotion, and narrative; melody gives them breath, movement, and a different kind of intimacy. A poem can remain silent on the page until a reader discovers it. A song, by contrast, fills the air, brings listeners together, and turns an individual experience into a shared emotion.

Songs such as “Lies” and “Country Child” reveal that continuity between the writer and the composer, connecting the passage of time with the need to rebuild human bonds. The bolero “Lies” wears its romanticism on its sleeve and reveals his care for lyrical imagery through the image of an everlasting rosebud taking root in the soul. In “Country Child,” a child talks with his father as they walk towards town. Through that simple dialogue, inequality, work, and the longing for a fairer life emerge. Tenderness and social awareness move forward together.

Music thus shares the themes of his poetry but reaches audiences in a different way: a poem is read and contemplated; a song is accompanied by an instrument and can pass from voice to voice. The remastered album is the natural continuation of a body of work that brings together intimacy and social awareness.

The Teacher Who Made Words a Meeting Place


Fernando Cely Herrán’s career is deeply rooted in teaching. For 31 years, he taught literature at schools and universities in Bogotá. For him, teaching was never simply about imparting knowledge of authors and literary movements, but about connecting with young people’s dreams and championing imagination as a transformative force.

His educational work continued through creative writing workshops at cultural and educational institutions across Colombia. Beyond teaching writing techniques, he sought to nurture readers capable of entering into conversation with books and recognising literature as a space for reflection and freedom.

That collective vision also gave rise to the poetry group Esperanza y Arena and the artistic and literary group Escafandra, both founded on a shared conviction: poetry grows when it is shared.

A voice born of memory 

From Drops of Crystal (1985), his first book, to titles such as The Broken Threads of Time (2013) and Counter-Postcards for Sleepless Cities (2015), Cely Herrán has created a poetic landscape where memory, solitude, love, and existential reflection enter into dialogue.

Drops of Crystalinitially circulated among family and friends. Its pages already revealed the explorations of a writer intent on transforming emotion into words. With Distances (1993), his voice matured, and themes such as the passage of time, vulnerability, and individual and collective wounds became more firmly established.

Books such as Songs of Heartbreak and Disillusionment, Between the Abyss and the Trench, Songs in the Twilight of Spring, Songs Without Number, and The Broken Threads of Time venture into the difficult terrain of existence without surrendering to despair. Even in the face of loss, the resolve to rebuild and uphold human dignity endures.

The poet as a witness to his time

In Cely’s work, personal pain intertwines with the wounds of a country marked by inequality and historical conflicts. For him, the poet cannot remain indifferent: his words must contemplate beauty, but also listen to farmers, workers, and communities often left out of the narrative.

In Between the Abyss and the Trench and Triptych of Indignation, his poetry adopts a critical tone towards Colombian reality. This perspective finds intimate expression in Of Loose Verses and Other Sorrows, where illness, the fragility of the body, and an awareness of time become universal symbols. In “Report”, he writes:

I am a goldfinch
trapped in a body
that will not let me fly.

The image encapsulates a central tension in his poetry: the body as a boundary and the spirit as a striving for freedom.

Conversations in times of uncertainty

His connection with nature also nourishes his creative world. He has a special affection for animals, whose sensitivity and adaptability he admires, and speaks with fascination about the sea and its mystery. This feeling finds expression in Nathalie and the Sea, a story in which a young woman becomes the guardian of the northern sea.

His latest work, More Classroom Stories and Other Tales, revisits episodes from childhood, adolescence, and his teaching career. With humour and nostalgia, it brings together school experiences, characters, and everyday scenes that offer insights into education, friendship, and the human condition. Both books share an underlying conviction: seemingly simple moments are often those that ultimately shape our lives.

The Affections That Endure

           

Her connection with nature also nourishes her creative world. She feels a particular fondness for animals, whose sensitivity and adaptability she admires, and speaks with fascination about the sea and its mystery. This feeling finds expression in Nathalie and the Sea, a story in which a young woman becomes guardian of the northern sea.

Her latest work, More Classroom Stories and Other Tales, revisits episodes from her childhood, adolescence, and teaching career. With humour and nostalgia, it brings together school experiences, characters, and everyday scenes that offer lessons about education, friendship, and the human condition. Both books share an underlying conviction: seemingly simple moments are often the ones that ultimately shape our story. 

A life devoted to words

Fernando Cely Herrán’s work spans more than twenty books of poetry and includes fiction for children and young adults, with titles such as Ena-Genesis (Moments That Became Eternal), The Wild Tales of Pepotas the Duck, Come, My Son, and Nathaly and the Sea. His literary career has been recognised at national and international literary gatherings. He is currently a member of the Association of Writers of Boyacá (AESBO) and the Boyacá Academy of Language.

Beyond these honours, his work sustains a central idea: art as companionship and a way of enduring. His music brings together the poet who cherishes every word, the composer who gives it musical form, and the singer who shares it with the audience.

Fernando Cely Herrán continues to write, compose, and sing like someone keeping a small flame burning in the night. His work reminds us that poetry can transform pain, that music can bring us together around the wounds of the world, and that a voice devoted to others always finds a way to endure.

“Music and poetry somehow give us a sense of the eternity of which we are part. These songs by Fernando Cely Herrán move us and keep us company, helping us understand that life is a mirror that will always reflect the face with which we look at it.”

Writer: Fernando Soto Aparicio

 To listen to the songs on the album, click here.

 Bibliography:

 

 

By Isabel O'Donoghue at

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