Poet Antonio Agüero's Museum

A house in the very center of Villa de Merlo a few blocks away from the urban shell has been turned into a museum and treasures the imprint left by Antonio Esteban Agüero.

Without a beveled corner and resembling the House of Tucumán, we entered the building once inhabited by the voice and soul of Merlo. We wanted to learn a little bit more about the writer's life and work. There are five rooms, a yard with a well and a roofed gallery that lines the white-wall and green-wood rooms.

A series of plates pays tribute to the memory of a man who knew the scenery, the history and the traditions of San Luis like nobody else. The tour has a certain order and all the spaces still have old family furniture as well as typewriters and bookcases that accompanied the poet during his life.

Thus, it is possible to reassemble Agüero's short but fruitful life, from his childhood in Piedra Pintada, where his father was a schoolmaster and taught him about love for the written word, until the last decade of his life in Villa de Merlo.

Documents, letters, pictorial works with his texts and excerpts of his writing, as well as national and provincial awards he once received for his books are concentrated at the venue. We were impressed by a series of verses and sonnets Antonio Agüero and Pablo Neruda used to salute each other with mutual feeling and respect.

His simple work table and his bedroom make strong contrast with his title of Doctor Honoris Causa post mortem granted by the University of San Luis, after he was buried in Merlo.

Antonio Esteban Agüero's poetry is reflected at each step and his Cantata del Abuelo Algarrobo (Grandpa Carob's Cantata) is one of the most repeated all along different tours.

As we left the coziness of the adobes in the house museum, we picked up a phrase by the poet that confirms what we had felt during our visit: 'Poets exist so that all of us may understand reality around us and express our own feelings'.