Voices to bid farewell to Jorge Aulicino: the poet, the journalist, and the friend

Jorge Aulicino , one of the most influential voices in contemporary Argentine poetry, died this Sunday at the age of 75. A poet , journalist , editor, and translator , his work spanned more than five decades, with a style marked by critical thinking, lyrical sobriety, and a profound humanistic sensibility.

“ Friendship and poetry are inextricably linked with Jorge. It's impossible to remember when we crossed paths, at the end of the dictatorship, during acts of cultural resistance. Since then, the exchange of books and meetings have been constant and growing. He was relentless and honest in discussions, whether political or literary . He believed in discussion as a search for truth, always elusive and provisional,” Miguel Gaya, poet and winner of the Clarín Novel Prize, tells Clarín.

Aulicino was born in Buenos Aires in 1949. He trained as a poet and journalist, primarily at Clarín , where he was the Culture and General Information editor, and one of the founding fathers of Revista Ñ . He also directed Generación 83 during the democratic transition.

“We met over forty years ago, during the dictatorship. We shared events of humble poetic resistance : readings, series, requests,” says poet and editor Javier Cófreces of Ediciones en Danza, with whom Aulicino has published a substantial portion of his work since 2010.

The author-editor relationship strengthened over time : “Besides books, we shared our weaknesses: tobacco, pipes, and cats . Half of our time spent together was devoted to these fundamental topics of our lives,” he adds.

One of those books, Los gatos (2021), had special meaning for Aulicino. “It emerged after the death of his cat Micha. That anthology was a healing task for him to navigate his grief ,” Cófreces recalls to Clarín .

The bond, far from being merely professional, was founded on a fraternal friendship, cultivated over coffee and lunch at El Globo, El Celta, or Damblé. “I am convinced that time will establish him among the great Argentine poets, the unforgettable, the necessary,” he concludes. “For all that, and for your formidable poetry, I would like to warn you, my friend, that above all else: 'Death will have no power.' ”

Aulicino published two dozen books, including Book of Deception and Disenchantment, which earned him the National Poetry Prize. He also translated Dante Alligeri, Pasolini, Keats, and others with a fidelity that was also poetic reinterpretation.

Matter walks before the energy of each one. A kind of intermediate state between solid and gas. The strictly human is a void where the river thunders.

Jorge Aulicino (August 11, 1949–July 21, 2025). What a sad day, Bonturo. pic.twitter.com/gDmDCm43bH

— Danixa 🧠❤️ (@danixa) July 21, 2025

The combination of rigor, generosity, and a reserved way of inhabiting the world marked his connection to the Argentine literary scene. He actively participated in Diario de Poesía , a key publication for the 1980s revolution, and on his blog Otra Iglesia es Imposible (Another Church is Impossible), since 2006, he has cultivated a space for reading and disseminating poetry that brings together voices and traditions, always with a critical openness.

“From a literary perspective, Jorge Aulicino was undoubtedly a great master. He is the Argentine poet I have reread the most . I still have an edition of Estación Finlandia (his poetry published by Bajo la Luna), underlined, marked, and annotated to the point that it's difficult to read. A volume that has accompanied me everywhere for years, not only because of the beautiful edition but because of the need I still have to reread, understand, and delve into the different books that make up his work. His poems are outstanding in every respect. It would be unfair to single out just one,” writer, poet, and educator Ignacio Di Tullio tells Clarín .

For many, Aulicino was a “close mentor.” This is how Di Tullio describes him: “I know that, with the discretion that characterized him, he helped many other poets to be published , even paying for editions out of his own pocket. He was generous, intelligent, loyal to his friends, and honest in every sense. He uncompromisingly denounced the growing frivolity in everyday speech . He was also irritated by the banality of newsworthiness criteria, as well as by the sloppy writing style of journalists.”

What better way to be defined than by the loving gaze of our friends? “He was an extraordinary poet,” the writer continues, adding: “Beyond the amazement that initially aroused my attention when reading his poems, in 2020 I approached his work from a critical perspective. In the context of writing a master's thesis, I decided to investigate the relationship between Aulicino's poetic work and his development as a journalist over almost forty years.”

Thanks to him, he discovered the figure of what he calls a "Poet-journalist, founded, among other elements, on the principles of brevity, clarity, and conciseness, as well as a search for objectivity driven by the objectivist tone of his poems." In fact, Aulicino himself said that "he had learned to write poetry working as a journalist, a profession he pursued in newspapers, magazines, and news agencies."

And although the artist's work can't always be separated, his friends say that "as a person, Jorge was an attentive listener . Like his great friend Irene Gruss, he was uncompromising with people who spoke without thinking, with the corrupt, and with those who gave themselves airs of grandeur."

For this reason, Di Tullio allows himself to say without hesitation: “ I will remember him as someone humble when speaking about his own poetry, sincere when referring to the poetry of others, and honest both professionally and in his everyday life. When it came to everyday matters, human relations, and the search for language (in both literature and journalism), he seemed to have an obsession with pursuing honesty, truth, and concreteness. He didn't care about words . That, in his case, was both his ethics and his aesthetics.”

“Whether as a poet, a translator of Italian poetry, or also as a journalist, Aulicino leaves behind an immense legacy . His work evolves from book to book and is characterized by a degree of erudition and an ideological and political component that is rare in contemporary poetry. He will undoubtedly be remembered as one of the great Argentine poets of the 20th century,” says his friend.

Matter walks before the energy of each one. A kind of intermediate state between solid and gas. The strictly human is a void where the river thunders.

Jorge Aulicino (August 11, 1949–July 21, 2025). What a sad day, Bonturo. pic.twitter.com/gDmDCm43bH

— Danixa 🧠❤️ (@danixa) July 21, 2025

Daniel Mecca , a writer and keen reader of his work, summed it up this way: “Every time a poet dies, the world becomes a wasteland.” But perhaps, in this case, what remains is not just the absence. What remains is also a way of reading the world. What remains is his way of translating it, of straining his tongue to speak without solemnity, but above all, what remains is an ethic of the word.