My Soul Stripped Bare

Ligia Isabel Guerrero's poetry collection, "My Soul Undresses," is constructed upon various dichotomies: youth-age, love-heartbreak, memory-forgetfulness, dream-reality, dawn-dusk, and many others that give this poetry its permanence and clarity. It is a nudity, or a process of undressing, chaste and continuous that brings us close to the nudes of impressionist painters, a nudity illuminated by the sun, that approaches the reader, or the viewer, not in a threatening way, like certain expressionist nudes, but inviting us on a journey of love that arises from the everyday, the love of everyday life. Dreaming of life, living love, living the life of love that gives itself without demanding or asking for anything. A love that is everywhere, in all of nature: the river, the mountain, Mother Earth. A nature that is all love, leading us to another love, a pantheistic love that is dreamt awake: the love of God, that love that is within nature. All of nature is God, and it reflects the love of God. The religious aspect of love is another presence in Ligia's poetry, "My Soul Undresses." Let us listen to the multiple voices of Ligia: "I have a great God," "the greatness of the Eternal," "always your greatness, Lord." But do not think that love is without risks, all loves are besieged by dangers on land, sea, in the air: forgetfulness and betrayal, unrequited love, failed love. And that other danger: the routine of love, or loving. The lack of communication between lovers. One of the leitmotifs of this poetry is the gaze that we encounter throughout this journey: childhood, youth, the autumnal life. In this invitation to love that Ligia offers us, the gaze discovers and conceals love. With the gaze, one loves the other. The gaze initiates the discovery, the communion of love. Between the one who gazes and the one who is gazed at, there is a space that must be filled with love. The gaze, the eyes, are the mirror of the soul, the gaze is the bridge that begins to be thrown, to start the games of love. And this memory, another way of loving, of reliving love. Love for a country, a city, Nicaragua, Granada. Ligia extends this memory-bridge, and this bridge is crossed by life. Memories of love that are revived in the presence of a country, a city. Time passes, time can extinguish or reignite, ignite that flame of love. The demon of routine lurks for lovers. Autumn and old age mercilessly await spring and youth. Love of youth, of spring, and love of autumn, each with its own charm and disillusionment, with its losses and gains, written in the lovers' life column. Ligia Isabel Guerrero, the lover of love, who never tires of the joy and anguish of loving, reminds us of the nudity of the chaste dancing figures in Cave paintings, or the Egyptian dancers naked or semi-naked adorning the walls of temples and palaces. But there is also something mysterious and mystical in the title of the poetry collection, that soul that undresses to present itself in the purity of graces. Nudity in poetry, nakedness, as purity, can be found in Darío: The soul that enters there must go naked, trembling with desire and holy fever, A mystical soul that enters the light. And again in Darío: as naked as she is, the star shines, And in Juan Ramón Jiménez nudity reminds us of the purity of poetry: ...But she kept undressing, and I smiled at her, Where the tunic of nudity is "ancient innocence." And Juan Ramón finishes by saying: Oh passion of my life, poetry naked, mine forever! Ligia delivers the legacy of her poetry, stripped of all malice and deceit, to offer us the love of the world. Horacio Peña

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