World Poetry Day: Innovation and Resistance in Mexican Creation

Monica Rubalcava Mexico City, 21 Mar Diversity of voices, styles, origins and ways of seeing the world inhabit current Mexican poetry, a literary genre that, without being the most popular in the country, resists and survives with the desire to find new ways. “Poetry has always had everything against it, cultural policies, readers who are lazy to read, bad prosists who reject poets because we don't fill the whole page - which is criminal. But poetry is still the highest and most sophisticated means of communicating,” said Mexican poet Vicente Quirarte in an interview with Efe as part of World Poetry Day celebrated this Monday. Despite this, “poetry resists”, says the writer of “Luz de Mayo” (1994), and in that arduous effort, he works in correspondence with reality and science to continue attending to paradigms of existence, considering that: “Any manifestation of science has to do with poetry”. “Poetry cannot be detached from what happens every day, it is not an escape from reality, it is a deeper entry into it,” he says. This is reflected in the work of Mexican poets such as Elisa Díaz Castelo in her book “The Kingdom of the Non-Linear” or “Theory of the Unified Field”, by Jorge Esquinca, the result of the inspiration that the author felt after learning that a flower was discovered on Mars, as well as “Objects are farther than they seem”, by David Huerta, as noted by Quirarte. RENOVATION AND OPENING For the poet and editor of the UNAM Poetry Newspaper, Hernán Bravo, current Mexican poetry has been nourished by a “very healthy revision” of the canons that had governed the creation of poetry in the country. From his perspective, this has given way for new creators to rethink the possible paths for such art and along the way they have become “disturbing and proactive works”. “The sign of the latest (or most recent works) of Mexican poetry is that of extroversion, of insumission and of a much more effervescent rebellion, more in a state of boiling with respect to parameters, lines of work, classicisms inherited and somewhat stiff from other generations,” says Bravo. The work of Zel Cabrera, a Mexican poet and journalist, could exemplify this. In the pandemic, the writer promoted the publishing project Los Libros del Perro, with which she aims to give space to creators from diversity and inclusion in terms of gender, disability, ethnic groups, among others, with the virtual title “Novísimas. Meeting of Mexican poets 1989-1990” the first copy of the project. INDIGENOUS POETRY AND WOMEN This diversity is exemplified in all its glory by the work of indigenous women and men poets, who have had to resist - even more - the practical disadvantages that poetry faces in general. “Through literature we help our languages continue to exist and resist by spreading what we do outside our peoples, but also within them so that the next generations are interested in the beauty of language, in the aesthetics reflected in poetry, and in this way they resist,” he says in an interview with Efe the poet and UN representative of the indigenous peoples of Mexico, Latin America and the Caribbean, Irma Pineda. For the Zapotec poet, all those who dedicate themselves to poetry in their languages make a political position that attests to the fact that in Mexico “other languages are spoken in addition to Spanish,” she explains. “It is a way of saying: Here are the indigenous peoples and we are not only alive, but we are creating art and poetry”, he goes into depth. In addition, despite the structural problems that have permeated the development of the literary genre in these communities, as well as the limitations that have mainly affected women, Pineda says that there has been a progress that is evident in the work of writers such as Celerina Sánchez, from Oaxaca; Enriqueta Lunez, from Chiapas, or Briceida Cuevas Cob, from Campeche, among many others. “We women arrived a little later, but it seems to me that those of us who are in literature now have excellent work. At this time, poetry written by women stands out, we are late but stepping strong,” says Pineda. Finally, Quirarte believes that the best way to commemorate World Poetry Day is by reading a poem aloud, while Bravo comments: “I think that in poetry we still have a refuge for those who have not abandoned themselves to totalitarian responses, to false truths and to think that the world is unidirectional and that that exists is what we see,” he says. CHIEF mrl/ia/jrh/cfa (photo)