Pobre burro!
Gloria Fuertes
El burro nunca dejará de ser burro.
Porque el burro nunca va a la escuela.
El burro nunca llegará a ser caballo.
El burro nunca ganará carreras.
¿qué culpa tiene el burro de ser burro?
En el pueblo del burro no hay escuela.
El burro se pasa la vida trabajando,
tirando de un carro,
sin pena ni gloria,
y los fines de semana
atado a la noria.
El burro no sabe leer,
pero tiene memoria.
El burro llega el último a la meta,
¡pero le cantan los poetas!
El burro duerme en cabaña de lona.
No llamar burro al burro,
llamarle “ayudante del hombre”
o llamarle persona.
The donkey will never stop being a donkey.
Because the donkey never goes to school.
The donkey will never become a horse.
The donkey will never win races.
Is it the donkey’s fault that he is a donkey?
In the donkey’s village there is no school.
The donkey spends his life working,
pulling a cart,
without grief or glory,
and at the weekend
tied to the wheel.
The donkey can’t read,
but he has a memory.
The donkey reaches the finish line last,
But poets sing to him!
The donkey sleeps in a canvas hut.
Do not call the donkey donkey,
call him "man's helper"
or call him a person.
My mother chose, ‘Pobre burro!’, ‘Poor Donkey’ by Gloria Fuertes. She likes this poem because it is about discrimination. Elena’s favourite parts of the poem are the lines, “¿qué culpa tiene el burro de ser burro?”, “Is it the donkey’s fault that he is a donkey?” and, “En el pueblo del burro no hay escuela”, “In the donkey’s village there is no school”. Gloria Fuertes was a Spanish poet and author of children’s literature who was born in Madrid in 1917. She started writing at the age of twelve. She became well known in Spain in the 1970s because she was on children’s television shows. In her work she defended equality between men and women, pacifism and the fight for the environment.