Eugenio Montejo | Venezuelan poet, 70

Eugenio Montejo, 70, a Venezuelan poet and essayist who won the 2004 Octavio Paz prize, died Thursday, his publishing house in Caracas said.

Mr. Montejo's poetry is known for its rich texture and was published in numerous books in Spanish. His work also reached a wider audience thanks to the 2003 film 21 Grams by Mexican director Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu. In one scene, Sean Penn's character quotes a line from a 1988 poem by Montejo: "The earth turned to bring us closer. It turned on itself and in us, until it finally brought us together in this dream."