I like life
simple and serene,
the sleeping countryside
in the fresh grass,
the white poplar trees,
the ancient mountains,
the running river
through a narrow gorge,
the wheat field of gold
with new flour,
the breeze on the air,
soft and traveling.

I like to be life
in all of life,
to breathe in the air,
to count the stars,
to see country sides of olive trees,
to enjoy the pasture lands.

What do these things have
that they should be so beautiful?
It is something that flows
of divine essence.
It is the friendly hand
of God upon the earth.

This is the work (an English translation) of Jose Luis Garcia Suarez, a 72-year-old Spanish poet, whose work is not widely known in his home country, but is gaining awareness on Calvin's campus.

Kori VanderKooi, former Calvin professor of Spanish, was first introduced to his work before she began teaching at Calvin. "It really was God's providence how this all came about," she said. "I met his daughter at an airport while I was a student at Calvin during my semester in Spain. I continued to correspond with her and eventually came back and met Jose and learned of his work."

VanderKooi was so impressed that she began to incorporate his poetry into her teaching in the Spanish department at Calvin.

"I like using authentic materials in teaching grammatical structures," she said. "His work is such good, wholesome literature. The ideas are simple, but are based on universal themes—many of them are profound Christian themes," she said.

Students respond well to it.

"Knowing there is a real, live poet behind it—a real face—makes a difference," she said. "All of my students are asked to write responses to his poetry and we send those to him. He usually responds back and is honored to have his poetry being studied here."

VanderKooi is hoping that Suarez' poetry will become more widely recognized here and in his own country.

"It is such good poetry, but it is not widely circulated," she said. Vander Kooi hopes to change that and with the help of a Calvin Alumni Association grant has begun collecting some of his poetry for publication here.

"He has produced tons of work," she said, "but it has always been his hobby and he wanted to keep it to himself. Now as old age is creeping up on him I think he recognizes that he has something to say that matters."

That combined with the fact that he now has a laptop computer donated to him by Calvin has helped make production easier.

"When I first met him he was using an archaic typewriter for all of his work and it was all stored in mounds of paper in his house," she said. "With the computer he says he has become twice as productive."

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