Death of poet José Hierro, in Madrid. A poet of the 1940s whose work came into view again in the 60s, and reappeared in its final incarnation in the 1990s. He won every conceivable prize--at a moment in which his work was no longer really meaningful. It was as though the Spanish literary establishment could only recognize one poet at a time. Of course, the article in El País this morning is signed by my sworn enemy, Luis García Montero. The "realist" school loves to proclaim its allegiance to Hierro. A good poet? Certainly. Great? Almost certainly not.