Otilio Vigil Díaz

Otilio Vigil Díaz, commonly known as Virgil Díaz (1880–1961) was a poet and Dominican writer who created the literary movement known as vendrinismo. He was the first to introduce free verse in Dominican letters with his poem, "Arabesco."

He was born in Santo Domingo, April 6, 1880. Story-writer and narrator. The son of Francisco Vigil and Isabel Díaz. Studied in primary and secondary school in Santo Domingo, but did not continue to study in the university. During the first decades of the twentieth century, his visits to New York and Cuba as well as his stay in Paris, marked his literary production. The French literature of the time arose in him a perturbing spirit of artistic renovation. In return to the Dominican Republic he established vedrinismo, the first intent of a literary movement of vanguard in the Dominican Republic that pleaded for the introduction of free verse to national poetry. Despite the fact that he was the only representative of vendrinismo, Vigil Díaz was able to get Dominican poetry to take its first steps towards modernity with the publication of the poem "Arabesco" in 1917. His opinionated poems and essays were broadcast in magazines including: Cromos, Letras, La Cuna de América, Renacimiento, Cosmopolita, Bahoruco, El día ético and Blanco y Negro. During many years he maintained the "Fatamorgana" column, which first appeared in the Listín Diario, later in La opinión and finally in La Nación. In the beginning of his literary career he was bound to postumismo, but the esthetic differences with postumismo poets forced him to distance himself from this group. He died in Santo Domingo January 20, 1962.

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