Background
Cortés was born in the colonial city of León, Nicaragua.
Cortés was born in the colonial city of León, Nicaragua.
He is often referred to as the most important poet after Rubén Darío (poet who initiated the Spanish-American literary movement known as modernismo (modernism)). Before his death, he often said he was "less important than Darío, but more profound". At the age of 34, he moved into the house in which the famous and most celebrated Nicaraguan poet, Rubén Darío, spent his childhood.
Cortés lost his mind on midnight of February 18, 1927 at the age of 34.
Cortés spent much of that year chained to the iron grillwork of his bedroom window as a result of his delirium growing violent. The next 25 years of Cortés life was spent in a mental hospital in Managua.
Cortés had his moments of lucidity in which his family would unchain him and he would use that time to play guitar and write his poetry which he often wrote down in the margins of newspapers in a script so microscopic that they are hard to read without a magnifying glass. Song of Space was the first poem Cortés wrote after he went mad and it remains one of his most popular.
After his death he was buried in the Cathedral of León next to the tomb of Rubén Darío.
