Poet, journalist, translator and Colombian engineer. He was born on
November 7, 1833, in Santafe de Bogota, and died there himself on May
5, 1912. He entered the Seminary of Bogotá, where he studied Latin, and
then at the Colegio Mayor de Nuestra Señora del Rosario, where he
studied humanities. He received the degree of mathematics and
engineering at the military college. He traveled to the United States,
where he remained for seventeen years and then returned to their
homeland. Due to lack of vocation, he left engineer career to engage in
diplomacy and then to politics. In 1872 he was appointed Perpetual
Secretary of the Academia Colombiana de la Lengua. He translated poems
from the Greek, latin, English, French and Italian.
As a journalist, Pombo founded various national newspapers, such as El
Cartucho and El Centro; He directed the Thomist and collaborated in La
Siesta, El Heraldo, El Obrero, the new age and the Chronicles. Pombo is
recognized as the best exponent of romanticism in his country. The
central themes of his poetry were God, nature and women. He cultivated
all lyrical genres from high Ode to the tiny Epigram, and has passed to
the history of the Colombian literature as "the poet of the children".
In 1905 put it the honor of being declared the poet of Colombia.De his
numerous works include the following: Fables and truths (1916), painted
tales, prelude to spring, time of darkness, at Niagara, tales for
formal children, love and marriage, military Vademecum, accounting
Spanish libretto, new method of reading, the alphabet, Doña Pánfaga
(poetic play with esdrújulas words).