Poetry between life and death: the late work of César Vallejo

Hispania, 2020

This eclectic and insightful book is, in its essence, a collection of reflections of a life lived in and in-between languages, cultures, and words. The twenty chapters of Hallazgo y traducción de poesía chilena are comprised of articles, essays, book reviews, journal entries, introductions to translations, and interviews by and about poet/critic/translator Dave Oliphant (Fort Worth, Texas, 1939-). The book's diverse form matches its content, which centers on twentieth century Chilean poetry, specifically, the antipoetry of Nicanor Parra and the poetics of Enrique Lihn, while also dedicating pieces to lesser known poets such as the Chilean Romantic Guillermo Blest

Studies in 20th & 21st century literature, 2012

Two of Ludwig Wittgenstein's formulations serve as guideposts for the analysis of the poetry of García Valdés: the concept of language-game and the Creation Mystic Experience, or seeing the world as a miracle. The paper first considers the language-game in terms of "unbound" or exempt language. The poet, recognizing the metamorphic nature of language, frees it from predetermined cultural content and, most notably, from grammatical rigidity, toying with ambiguity and fluidity through such techniques as juxtaposition, pronoun vagueness and ellipsis. The second part of the study considers the poet's exploration of the ineffable, which embraces both the astonishment of being alive in the world-a mystic experience-and the mystery of death. The discovery of the wondrousness of the real comes through unhurried observation-principally visual, but also auditory and tactile-and is expressed with poignancy in language exempt from conventional constraints. When the focus is on mortality, additional textual strategies are present, for example, locating death in the body and placing a single sound within vast silence. What predominates is neither the astonishment of the real nor the menacing nearness of death but tension between the two; the ineffable balances on an axis of chiaroscuro.

452F (8), 2013

452ºF. Electronic journal of theory of literature and comparative literature, 8.

The poetry of Soledad Álvarez goes from ‘Vuelo posible’, in which reality is investigated through an erotic and sensual use of words to ‘Las estaciones íntimas’, in which erotism is shaped into softer words reflecting the eternal conflict between reason and emotion. The perspective of the female figure emerges in her texts as a means to achieve and redefine the identity of Santo Domingo through a painful and hard course towards the disclosure of human soul. This article will investigate the new perception of words in relation to the new chance of building a Nation’s identity through themes that are not only historical.

Philippine Studies Historical and Ethnographic Viewpoints, 2006

Abstract: Chilean poetry in the 1990s is characterised by the implicit or explicit criticism to the democratic transition that followed the end of the dictatorship (1973-1990). The poetry written in these times acknowledges that the return to democracy is anything but a façade and that the policies fostered by the dictatorship remain intact. In this context, women’s poetry is articulated from the residual space to which they are relegated through language, social and gendered conventions. It is from there that poets denounce the illusion and the simulacrum of the recovered democracy. For this purpose, there is a latent tone of disappointment in the shape of a lamentation as in the poetry of Escrito en Braille (1999) by Alejandra del Río, who criticises the role of the media, the importance of the market and the legacy of a culture rooted in a lack of referents. On the other hand, the use of gloss and the excess in a carnivalesque atmosphere in Uranio (1999) by Marina Arrate is contrasted with the construction of a phantom world, in a moment when the reality of the transition does not fullfl the expectations of those who opposed Pinochet. The purpose of this analysis is to provide evidence from both poems, in order to demonstrate that women’s poetic discourse takes the task to denounce and/or question the economic model imposed during the dictatorship, which is expressed in a poetry filled with disillusion. Resumen: La poesía chilena de los '90 se caracteriza por la crítica—explícita e implícita—a la transición democrática posterior a la dictadura (1973-1990). La poesía de esta época reconoce que el retorno a la democracia es solo aparente y que las políticas dictatoriales se mantienen intactas. En este marco, la poesía de mujeres se articula desde el espacio residual al que es relegada por el lenguaje y las convenciones sociales y genérico-sexuales. Desde allí, las poetas denuncian la ilusión y el simulacro de la democracia recobrada. Para ello, existe un tono de desilusión latente, expresado a través de una lamentación en la poesía de Escrito en Braille (1999) de Alejandra del Río, quien critica el rol de los medios, la importancia del mercado y el legado de una cultura entrañada en la falta de referentes. Por otra parte, el uso del brillo y el exceso en una atmósfera carnavalesca en el poemario Uranio (1999) de Marina Arrate, va en contrapunto a la construcción de un mundo fantasmal, cuando la realidad de la transición no cumple con las expectativas de quienes se opusieron a Pinochet. El propósito de este análisis es proveer evidencia contundente desde los poemas, a fin de demostrar que el discurso poético femenino se hace cargo de denunciar y/o contestar al modelo económico impuesto desde la dictadura, lo que deviene en una poesía cargada de desilusión. Palabras clave: poesía chilena, poesia femenina, Alejandra del Río, Marina Arrate.

IOSR Journal of Humanities and Social Science

In Mexico, the events of October 2, 1968 continue to be analyzed. The "Memorandum on Tlatelolco", offers a line of reflection to overcome the national duel of 48 years. From the field of hermeneutics, one deepens in the understanding of the poem of Rosario Castellanos, to find what is not said through the word. The study is developed from three categories of analysis: forgetting, thinking and memory. Two thematic axes are unveiled: nothingness as subject of the student movement of 1968 in Mexico; the suffering inherent in remembering painful events and the awareness of looking at our own death. These elements ratify the understanding of Rosario Castellanos as a critic of the violence that denounces social injustices. They also allow us to conclude that the inner voice of the analyzed text rehabilitates silence, forgetfulness, suffering and the agony of death, as social imaginaries of Mexican culture.

This essay considers the biographies of Claribel Alegría, Jorge Debravo, and Ernesto Carden to contextualize important facets of their diverse approaches to poesia comprometida in literary, cultural, and sociopolitical history. At the same time, its extracts certain poems that demonstrate the main literary devices and themes used to create them. It is theoretically framed by important scholarly criticisms and analyses done on each poet and some of the fictional work that the poets themselves have written regarding the social and political functions of their poetry.

Rupkatha Journal, 2020

Latin America has been defined as a land which has no other possibilities than its future. Since the historic times gave to this part of the world the fate of being oppressed, all its past was an expectancy of a self-consciousness in search of identity. ¿What are we if our language and traditions were sacked by cruel conquerors? We were, from there, a search for being ourselves. In any place and time, protest expressions are a common way in the battling to attain power. In many forms, protest is linked to the arts, as they are privileged vehicle for making a stand in favor of a specific political position, or to support an opposition. Arts are, in this connection, used to be subsidiary for an ideology, a set of assumed principles, or a desideratum sustained by some social group. In the other side, arts are ambiguous, or abstract, and need some amount of interpretation. The hermeneutic process applied to arts must cover all gaps and suppositions to complete, almost always in a verbal way, the idea; or to precise with words any lack of sense. Direct declarations or obvious elements give place to pamphletary pieces, but artists accept these if they can establish with certainty a militant proposition. In that, poetry is the best way for a fusion of the abstract realm of musicality with the direct phrasing of politics. In that case, the result is a song, transmitting concepts, but with the empowering of sounds. Colonial oppression is a principal item whenever we search for a definition appliable. But, at the same time, we recognize a constant trend inside the heart of Latin America: revolutionary expressions inviting to build a better future or claiming for a transformation in a self-affirming way.