Hanni Ossott

Hanni Ossott (Caracas, Venezuela, February 14, 1946-Ibídem, December 31, 2002) was a Venezuelan poet, professor, translator, essayist and art critic. She worked for more than twenty years as a teacher at the School of Letters at the Central University of Venezuela.

Beginnings

He was born in Caracas. His parents were Hans Ossott Machado and Magdalena Lipfert de Ossott, both of German origin. At 21 years old he began studying at the School of Letters, Faculty of Humanities and Education, of the Central University of Venezuela. In 1971 she married psychiatrist Alejandro Otero (son).

Death of mother

His mother died when Hanni was three years old. Her family hid the event from her for a long time in an attempt to protect her from her suffering and this traumatic event marked the rest of her life. It awakened in her a great poetic and spiritual sensitivity and a unique perception of her existence. Her mother is an important figure in some of her poetry books, especially in House of waters and shadow , the book in which she addresses the theme of childhood.

Career

He graduated in 1975 and began giving seminars: "History of the poster" and "Hölderlin and the image", at the Neumann Design Institute (currently Prodiseño).

In 1978 he assumed the chair "Expressive needs" at the School of Letters and throughout the following decade he taught the courses 'Poetry and Poets', 'Literature and Life', 'The Apollonian and the Dionysian', "German Literature"; Additionally, she served as Head of the Department of Paraliterary Disciplines.

She was very interested in the work of the Greeks and traveled to Greece to study Plato and Heraclitus at the University of Athens. At that time she was fluent in seven languages: Italian, French, Latin, English, German, Spanish and Greek. Likewise, she extensively studied the work of Friedrich Nietzsche.

Disillusioned by her academic experience in Athens, she decided to go to London to study philosophy, on the advice of her friend the historian Manuel Caballero, who at that time was studying postgraduate studies at Oxford. A few months later, she married Caballero.

He translated poets such as Rainer Maria Rilke, D.H. Lawrence and Emily Dickinson, decisive influences on her own work. She was also an art critic and published several books of essays on poetry.

Themes

Although he dealt with various themes, the approach of his poetry tends to be linked to the night, the house, pain and death.

Prizes

• National Prize at the II Biennial of Poetry Ramos Sucre, in 1976, for his work Forms in the dream are infinite

• Municipal Literature Prize Prosa Mention in 1987.
• CONAC Poesía Francisco Lazo Martí Award in 1988.

Works

• Spaces to say the same (1974).
• Spaces in dissolution (1976)
• Forms in sleep are infinite (1976).
• Memory in absence of image, memory of the body (1979).
• Spaces of absence and light (breakable link available on the Internet Archive; see history, first version and last). (1982).
• Until the day comes and flee the shadows (breakable link available on the Internet Archive; see history, first version and last). (1983).
• Plegarias y penumbras (1986).
• Images, voices and visions. Tests on poetic speaking (breakable link available on the Internet Archive; see history, first version and last). (1987).
• The kingdom where the night opens (1987)
• Honey, your big bow (1989).
• House of Water and Shadows [1]
• The broken circus (1996).

His poems were translated into English by Luis Miguel Isava and published in 2017

Death

After several years of confinement in a nursing home, he died in 2002. There were various speculations about the possibility that his death was a suicide and others that stated that it was from natural causes.

His ashes were scattered in the gardens of the Faculty of Humanities and Education of the UCV, where Ossott had taught for 20 years.