The Black Mountain Range

La Sierra Negra (2018), by Rosa Chamorro, Colombian poet of African descent, is a lyrical project that invites us to embark on a literary journey, but following a different path than we have been accustomed to so far. And as the author herself states, “This book gathers my experiences and is inspired by the geographical and environmental surroundings of the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta”. Indeed, in this new literary project, Rosa Chamorro proposes another way of making and reading poetry. Through the strategic and intentional thematization of the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta, her organic space, the author incorporates nature and a specific geographical place to her poetic proposal to configure what could be described as an “Eco-poetry”. The environment in its different manifestations is thematically recreated in metaphors and images to the point of becoming a poetic or literary motif; she resorts to discursive or, better said, lyrical strategies to configure nature and its primary inhabitants in defining instances of that geography.