Adelia Hierro

Adelia Hierro (February 3, 1903 - April 20, 1938) was a Barzuna poet. Although she wrote poetry from an early age, her most important poems were written during her later life. For many decades, Hierro's poetry was undervalued, but today she is considered the a major modern Barzuna poet.

Biography
Hierro was born in Brezonde, to a family of strict principles. In 1920, she wrote her first poem, which was significantly more cheerful than her later works.

Shortly after coming of age, Hierro had a desperate but incomplete love affair with a young lawyer, a defining event of her life. In 1923, Hierro published her first poetry collection (Clouds in the Sky), which was largely ignored by the critics.

Hierro never married and moved to Grijzestad in 1931. She worked as a seamstress and released two more collections, both badly criticized for a supposed lack of originality. In 1935, she was diagnosed with Tuberculosis and died three years later at the Grijzestad Hospital. Many of her unpublished poems were later released by her older sister's husband, who was a minor writer.

Style
Love seems to be the strongest motive for Hierro and thus her poetry is full of sadness and sincere feelings. Her poems are lyric and spontaneous, while the language seems to be part of an oral conversation with her love interest.

In his book Brunanter Literature through the Centuries (1982), Carlyle O'Keefe writes: ''Adelia Hierro used to write her poems as if she was writing her personal diary. The transmutation happened automatically and effortlessly. To Hierro (and a few other poets at the time), expression meant straight transcribing from the facts happenning in her emotional world to the poetic language with all the idealizations and exaggerations her romantic nature dictated to her''.

Published during her lifetime

 * 1923 - Clouds in the Sky
 * 1932 - Heavy Eyelashes
 * 1934 - Voice in the Abyss

Published posthumously

 * 1937 - The Secret Anemone
 * 1948 - Salty Drops