The literary emergence of Claudio in 1953, still an adolescent, with Gift of Inebriation, was not only the highlight of a different and dazzling kind of poetry, but also the first confirmed presence of what would be later referred to as the Generation of the 1950s. It is one of the very scarce cases, in our time, in which the poet’s voice becomes song. And it is the celebration of life in its purest components (nature’s affirmed mystery and the emotion of human’s presence and innocence) what confers this poetry its deepest religious accent. And if there is alliance, and high flight in the poetic gaze of Claudio Rodríguez, there is also the condemnation of our misery. But what is left in us after our reading of this comforting poetry is the renewed aspiration to depicting man and world from the deepest love. Moreover, it is a kind of poetry that faithfully reflects the best abodes of the affectionate person that writes them.
[…] He inhabited poetry together with its burden of helplessness, aware that salvation could be found only in it, regardless of where it was nourished from. He attempted an approach to the mystery from the contemplation of world and life, and he wanted us to receive it in the experience of writing, as knowledge. One had to start from the dark to achieve clarity, and he did so with words picked up from his people’s lips. From his ethical stance, Claudio valued simplicity, and he was simple, and there was an aspiration towards purity in his poetry, and he had a pure heart.