Poetry is Camilo Giraldo’s passion. It is the vehicle that allows him to deliver kind, passionate and bitter messages of love that are eloquently captured in his first self-published book “La Evolucion De Mi Amor (The Evolution of My Love).”
The small paperback book is a collection of 62 poems in English and Spanish about the author’s experiences with love, relationships, and heartbreak.
“It is a chronological development of poetry and prose since 1977,” Giraldo said during an interview last week. “We all give and receive love, at least a few times in our journey, but very few of us know how to interpret it and make it useful for our daily experience.”
Poetry for Giraldo is the materialization of human thoughts and sentiments in words and art, he said.
“We all create poetry when speaking to others, when interacting with others, [and] when trying to understand others,” Giraldo wrote in a statement.
In his mid-20s, the North Bergen resident and native is a computer information analyst during the day. When he is not at work, Giraldo thinks about how to spread his words and thoughts to a wider audience in Hudson County. On March 28, he will be reading excerpts from his book at the Barnes and Noble in Edgewater.
“Love is what brings meaning to life, but love is also what takes away our desires to live,” Giraldo said. “Love is the completeness we all seek, the purpose we all wish to find in life. This is a world of loners, of solitary souls that keep bouncing against the turbulent world that do not give us anything but instead takes away our purity, innocence, and the best intentions from us.”
The purpose of the book is to reach out to the reader’s soul and make a connection, according to Giraldo. He decided to publish the book almost a year ago after discovering hundreds of poems in his notebooks that he had kept through the years. Every poem in the book has the time and place where it was written. Some of the poems say on them “Bogota, Columbia” and others “Miami, Fla.” One of the most memorable poems is “Corazon Herido (Hurt Heart).” It is four stanzas long and describes the unpleasant separation of a couple in love.
“The Smell of Love,” is another poem that stands out. Staying true to the theme of love, it is a conversation with a person the author wishes to meet and get to know well.
“I found hundreds of poems among my collections and found a message I was sending to myself about my whereabouts in the matters of the heart,” he said. “I realized life is a journey and we never stop evolving when we share what we have learned.”
The Edgewater Barnes and Noble is located on 465 River Rd. After reading several excerpts from the book, Giraldo will sign copies for the public. For more information on Giraldo, call (201) 913-9839 or email him at camilo@kamilo.com.