Parliamentarians have declared a revered Nicaraguan poet a “national hero” on the centenary of his death, the Telesur news agency reported. Rubén Darío was given the accolade by the national assembly of Nicaragua on Saturday, in a ceremony in the north-western city of León, where the poet spent his childhood, and where he returned to late in life. 

Cultural events and exhibitions of his work are planned, while new editions of some of his books are scheduled for re-release. The Central Bank of Nicaragua is to issue commemorative coins in honour of Darío, seen by many as initiator of the Spanish-American modernismo (modernism) literary movement.

Among the writers he admired was Walt Whitman. His poems include ‘To Roosevelt’, in which he voiced his anger towards the US over its involvement in the separation of Panama from Colombia in 1903. It includes these lines: “You think life is fire,/ that progress is eruption;/ where you put your bullet/ you put the future.”