María Teresa Castillo (1938–2008) was a poet whose work directly engages with the challenges facing Venezuela throughout the latter half of the 20th century. Her poetry doesn’t merely document Venezuela’s problems—it sharpens them, showing the cracks beneath the surface of a society built on oil wealth and democratic promises. Castillo’s work is both a product of and response to the country’s deep contradictions, offering a window into the lives of those often left behind by Venezuela’s political and economic cycles.
“I write for the fallen leaf,
For the shadow that calls out,
For the silences that scream,
For the weight of the years,
For the future I cannot see.”
Born in Caracas in 1938, Castillo’s early life coincided with Venezuela’s so-called “golden age,” a period of rapid growth fuelled by its oil industry. The 1958 fall of the Pérez Jiménez dictatorship ushered in a new democratic government, and for many, Venezuela seemed poised for progress.
Yet, Castillo’s poetry soon began to reveal that the country’s prosperity was built on fragile foundations, and its democratic institutions often failed to address the systemic inequality and corruption that ran through its political fabric.
As the oil boom reached its peak in the 1970s, Castillo’s poetry turned sharply critical. While the country’s elite grew wealthier, the vast majority of the population continued to live in poverty.
In her early works, like El Tiempo de la Rabia(1975), Castillo responded to the widening gap between the rich and the poor. She focused on the disparity between Caracas’ gleaming skyscrapers and the impoverished barrios that surrounded them, offering a stark critique of the political system that allowed such inequality to persist.
“Oil flows like blood,
But the wounds never heal,
The poor remain beneath the shine,
The promises are made in silence.”
The instability that followed in the 1980s and 1990s seemed inevitable. Despite the country’s vast oil reserves, Venezuela’s reliance on this single resource left the economy vulnerable. When oil prices fell in the mid-1980s, the Government turned to austerity measures. These reforms triggered the Caracazo riots of 1989, a violent uprising that saw thousands of Venezuelans protesting against price hikes and cuts to social services.
Castillo’s poems from this time, like those in La Sombra del País (1990), captured the simmering frustration of a nation that had expected better from its government.
“The city burns,
But the heart is colder,
The people cry,
But the silence speaks louder.”
Through her work, Castillo chronicled a society in crisis, where economic reforms intended to stabilise the country often made life worse for those at the bottom. While her poetry was always informed by her political consciousness, it avoided the abstractions of ideology. Instead, she focused on people—on the poor and the dispossessed—whose daily lives were shaped by forces beyond their control. She expressed a clear sense of betrayal, not just by the Government, but by the political system itself, which seemed unable or unwilling to address the root causes of the country’s problems.
Her commitment to confronting these issues was not only literary. Castillo was an active participant in cultural and political movements throughout her life. As a member of the Movimiento Poético Nacional, she worked to ensure that poetry remained relevant to Venezuela’s political climate, urging poets and artists to engage with the realities of their time.
This was a time when Venezuela’s political landscape seemed permanently unstable, shifting between democratic reforms, economic crises, and the persistent shadow of authoritarianism.
“I write to resist,
To rise from the ashes,
To rebuild a land shattered by greed.
I write for the voice of the oppressed,
For those who have no words,
For those whose silence speaks louder than their screams.”
Castillo’s response to the turbulent political environment wasn’t just a critique of the system, but also a challenge to her readers. She demanded that Venezuela face the reality of its circumstances—no matter how uncomfortable. Her poetry grew sharper in response to the deepening crises of the 1980s and 1990s, as oil price fluctuations and debt worsened the country’s economic situation. In her later collection La Herida del Alma (1995), she described a country in the process of coming apart, not through overt violence but through neglect.
“The heart of the country has cracked,
A fragile soul lost in the abyss,
How many tears must fall
Before we are made whole again?”
Despite her deep attachment to her country, Castillo’s work also dealt with themes of exile. As Venezuela’s political instability grew in the 1990s, the emigration of middle-class Venezuelans became more pronounced. By the 2000s, under Hugo Chávez, the Venezuelan exodus accelerated dramatically.
Over seven million Venezuelans have fled the country since 2015, the largest mass migration in Latin American history. This wave of migration includes many who left due to political persecution, economic collapse, and the breakdown of public services.
For many Venezuelans, including those in Trinidad, the experience of exile is far from simple. Trinidad, with its close cultural ties to Venezuela, became one of the main destinations for those seeking refuge.
As of 2023, there are over 40,000 Venezuelans living in T&T, with estimates suggesting that the actual number may be higher due to irregular migration. These migrants are not just fleeing a failing state; they are seeking a space where they can rebuild their lives amidst the ruins of their homeland.
In Los que Parten (2000), Castillo speaks directly to this experience of leaving a home that has been irrevocably altered. Her poems don’t idealize exile, but instead recognise it as a painful necessity for those who could no longer stay in a country they no longer recognised.
“It is not the land we leave behind,
It is the soul of the land we carry with us.
In every step taken away,
We leave a piece of ourselves,
And yet, the homeland remains inside us.”
Castillo’s poetry resonates particularly with the Venezuelan diaspora, those who, like her, were displaced by a country in transition. For the Venezuelans now living in places like Trinidad, her works offer both a mirror to their experiences and a form of solidarity.
Trinidad’s own history of migration from Lebanon, Syria, and other parts of the Caribbean has forged a unique space for Venezuelans, where they too, like previous waves of migrants, navigate the complexities of home and belonging.
Castillo’s themes of exile, loss, and longing are universal, but they are deeply relevant to a generation of Venezuelans who continue to struggle with their country’s political and economic crises.
Though she died in 2008, just as Hugo Chávez’s Bolivarian Revolution was taking hold, Castillo’s poetry remains a reminder of the Venezuela that existed before the revolution’s populist fervour. Her critiques were never of one political figure or another, but of the system as a whole—a system that allowed the country’s wealth to be concentrated in the hands of the few while the many continued to suffer.
Castillo’s legacy endures through her writings and through the lives of those who continue to grapple with the country’s long-standing issues. Her daughter, the writer Fabiola Flores, has worked to preserve Castillo’s literary legacy, ensuring that future generations will continue to engage with the urgent social and political questions that her mother raised.
“Venezuela, my love,
You will rise again.
Your soul is made of fire,
And even in ashes,
You are not defeated.”
María Teresa Castillo’s poetry speaks to the heart of Venezuela’s identity—not just to its natural beauty and oil wealth, but to its contradictions, to the broken promises that continue to haunt its people. Through her work, Castillo captured the pulse of a country struggling to reconcile its past with its present, its aspirations with its reality.
Ira Mathur is a Guardian Media journalist and the winner of the 2023 Bocas Prize for Non-Fiction for her memoir, Love The Dark Days.
Website: www.irasroom.org. Author inquiries: irasroom@gmail.com
