Spanish
Mexico City.- 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 aim of finding new paths.
"Poetry has always had everything against it, cultural policies, readers who are too lazy to read, bad prose writers who reject poets because we don't fill the whole page - which is criminal-. But poetry remains the highest and most sophisticated means of communication," says Mexican poet Vicente Quirarte in an interview with Efe on the occasion of World Poetry Day, which is 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 addressing paradigms of existence, because he considers that: "Any manifestation of science has to do with poetry".
"Poetry cannot be detached from what happens day by day; it is not an escape from reality, but a deeper entry into it," he affirms.
This is reflected in the work of Mexican poets such as Elisa Díaz Castelo in her book "El reino de lo no lineal" or "Teoría del campo unificado", by Jorge Esquinca, the result of the inspiration that the author felt after learning that a flower was discovered on Mars, as well as "Los objetos están más lejos de lo que parecen", by David Huerta, as Quirarte points out.
RENEWAL AND OPENING For the poet and editor of the UNAM Poetry Journal, 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 their perspective, this has given way to new creators rethinking the possible paths for said art and in the process have become "disturbing and propositive works". "The sign of the latest (or most recent works) of Mexican poetry is that of extroversion, insubordination and a much more effervescent rebellion, more in a state of ebullition with respect to parameters, lines of work, inherited and somewhat stiff classicisms of other generations", points out Bravo. The work of Zel Cabrera, a Mexican poet and journalist, could exemplify the above. During the pandemic, the writer promoted the publishing project Los Libros del Perro, with which she intends to give space to creators from diversity and inclusion in terms of gender, disability, ethnic groups, among others, with the virtual title "Novísimas. Reunion of Mexican poets 1989-1990" being the first copy of the project. INDIGENOUS POETRY AND WOMEN That diversity is exemplified in all its splendor by the work of indigenous women and men poets, who have had to resist -even more- the practical disadvantages faced by poetry in general. "Through literature, we help our languages continue to exist and resist by spreading what we do outside our communities, but also within them so that future generations become interested in the beauty of the language, in the aesthetics reflected in poetry, and in that way we resist," points out 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 positioning that attests that in Mexico "besides Spanish, other languages are spoken," she explains. "It's a way of saying: Here we are, the indigenous peoples, and we are not only alive, but we are creating art and poetry," she elaborates. Furthermore, despite the structural problems that have permeated the development of the literary genre in these communities, as well as the limitations that have primarily affected women, Pineda expresses that there has been progress that is noticeable with the work of writers such as Celerina Sánchez, from Oaxaca; Enriqueta Lunez, from Chiapas, or Briceida Cuevas Cob, from Campeche, among many others. "Women arrive a little later, but I think that those of us in literature now have work of excellent quality. In this time, poetry written by women stands out, we arrive 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 answers, to false truths and to thinking that the world is unidirectional and that what exists is what we see," he says.
