Medardo Ángel Silva

Medardo Ángel Silva

1898–1919

Medardo Ángel Silva (1898–1919) was an Ecuadorian poet from Guayaquil, one of the “decapitated generation” of Ecuadorian Modernist poets who all died young. Largely self-taught, he worked for the newspaper El Telégrafo.

His only collection published in his lifetime, El árbol del bien y del mal (1918), is full of melancholy and a longing for death influenced by the French Symbolists. His poem “El alma en los labios”, set to music, became a famous Ecuadorian pasillo. He died of a gunshot wound at 21.

Best-known poems

All poems (121)

A 15

B 2

C 6

D 7

E 26

F 7

H 3

I 3

J 1

L 17

O 2

P 6

R 7

S 7

T 4

U 1

V 6

Y 1