UCLA Electronic Theses and Dissertations

UCLA UCLA Electronic Theses and Dissertations Title Volcanic Poetics: Revolutionary Myth and Affect in Managua and the Mission, 1961-2007 Permalink https://escholarship.org/uc/item/87h094jr Author Dochterman, Zen David Publication Date 2016 Peer reviewed|Thesis/dissertation eScholarship.org Powered by the California Digital Library University of California UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA Los Angeles Volcanic Poetics: Revolutionary Myth and Affect in Managua and the Mission, 1961-2007 A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree Doctor of Philosophy in Comparative Literature by Zen David Dochterman 2016 © Copyright by Zen David Dochterman 2016 ABSTRACT OF THE DISSERTATION Volcanic Poetics: Revolutionary Myth and Affect in Managua and the Mission, 1961-2007 by Zen David Dochterman Doctor of Philosophy in Comparative Literature University of California, Los Angeles, 2016 Professor Efrain Kristal, Chair Volcanic Poetics: Revolutionary Myth and Affect in Managua and the Mission, 1961-2007 examines the development of Nicaraguan politically engaged poetry from the initial moments of the Sandinista resistance in the seventies to the contemporary post-Cold War era, as well as its impact on Bay Area Latino/a poetry in the seventies and eighties. This dissertation argues that a critical mass of politically committed Nicaraguan writers developed an approach to poetry to articulate their revolutionary hopes not in classical Marxist terms, but as a decisive rupture with the present order that might generate social, spiritual, and natural communion. I use the term “volcanic poetics” to refer to this approach to poetry, and my dissertation explores its vicissitudes in the political and artistic engagements of writers and poets who either sympathized with, or were protagonists of, the Sandinista revolution. ii Chapter 1 examines the notion of the “engaged poet” in Central America and how Ernesto Cardenal, Gioconda Belli, and Daisy Zamora framed insurrection against the Somoza regime in the seventies through three myths that would come to define their volcanic poetics: natural force (the capacity of a people to embody the powers of the earth), cosmic love (revolution as being guided by the unfolding of love in the universe), and poetic martyrdom (suffering as the highest aesthetic calling of the revolutionary). Chapter 2 examines how, despite a poetic ethos of rupture, insurrection, and communion, these writers often failed to interrogate the shortcomings of the period of Sandinista rule (1979-1990), instead employing a volcanic poetics to affirm national unity. Chapter 3 analyzes the impact of the end of the Cold War and the defeat of Sandinismo on Cardenal, Belli, and Zamora, showing how their works became infused with a nostalgia for the earlier moments of the Sandinista revolution or an attitude verging on cynicism about the political possibilities of the present. Chapter 4 details the ways in which this volcanic poetics had an impact in Bay Area poetry through the work of Alejandro Murguía, Nina Serrano, and Roberto Vargas, and the development of a poetics of “tropicalization” that linked local nationalist concerns (such as those of the Chicano/a movement) with international social movements in Nicaragua and other parts of the “Third World.” Along with an engagement with the aesthetic and ideological debates informing the texts I analyze, this dissertation traces how affects, such as tedium, angst, or depression often circulate in them to reveal a persistent unease with various forms of class and gender oppression unaccounted for by this volcanic poetics and its ethos of communion. Volcanic Poetics proposes a way to read the ongoing relevance of engaged poetry in the contemporary era by recuperating moments of affective dissonance with forms of social oppression and the myths of revolution, as iii well as the utopian longings informing these texts. Volcanic Poetics critically reexamines the contemporary aesthetic relevance of the Sandinista moment, its repercussions on San Francisco Bay Area poets in the United States, and what an engaged poetics might mean in the era of global capitalism. iv The dissertation of Zen David Dochterman is approved. Jorge Marturano Eleanor Kaufman Kenneth Reinhard Efrain Kristal, Committee Chair University of California, Los Angeles 2016 v For my family, who gave me a love of knowledge. vi Table of Contents Acknowledgments viii Curriculum Vitae xi Introduction 1 Chapter 1 29 Volcanic Poetry: Natural Force, Cosmic Love, and Poetic Martyrdom, in Nicaraguan Poetry, 1961-1979 Chapter 2 99 Affirmative Poetics and the Negativity of Revolution: 1979 to 1990 Chapter 3 152 In the Volcano’s Ashes: Nostalgia and Cynicism in the Post-Cold War World Chapter 4 210 Tropicalizing Bay Area Poetry: Revolutionary Solidarities from Managua to the Mission in Roberto Vargas, Nina Serrano, and Alejandro Murguía Conclusion 269 Negative Utopianism and the Legacy of Sandinismo vii Acknowledgments While I have read many acknowledgments pages throughout my life, before writing this dissertation I never truly understood the depth of gratitude contained in the phrase “I could not have done this without…” But more than that, I came to understand the literality of this phrase; looking back on this project now, I realize that without certain people in my life, there would have been no creative insights, no humor to carry me through the darker times, and ultimately none of the following pages would have been written. Asserting the myth of one’s own pseudoindividuality in the production of knowledge not only produces isolation, but reifies and thereby degrades what is, in its essence, a collective process and project. Instead, perhaps an acknowledgments page like this, in some small way, is testament to the hope for a world in which individual acts, lives, and experiences might better reflect the communal nature of our being. If what follows reads as an index of names, it is not only due to the countless people who have touched me, but equally it is due to the fact that we are as yet not better able to name and speak from that collective sense of being. First, I want to thank my colleagues at UCLA, especially Yuting Huang, Alexei Nowak, Timothy Haehn, Shir Alon, Nasia Anam, Carolina Beltran, Fatima Burney, and Isabel Gomez for sharing in all of the intellectual and emotional journeys that accompanied this part of my life. It is no exaggeration to say that without their insights, feedback, humor, and care this project would not be what it is. I want to thank the professors who I have worked with and who have given me valuable feedback on the chapters and my lines of thought, especially Jorge Marturano, Hector Calderón, Kenneth Reinhard, Eleanor Kaufman. In particular, I appreciate the conversations I have had with my Efrain Kristal, who challenged me to understand the stakes of such a project in viii our contemporary moment, who insisted on a deeper attention to detail, nuance, and history, and whose feedback made me a much better writer than when I started. I am grateful to the Departments of Comparative Literature and Spanish as a whole as well as the support I have received from them, as well as from the Graduate Research Mentorship Fellowship, and the Foreign Language and Area Studies Fellowship. U.C.L.A itself is the countless insightful and dedicated undergraduate students, many of whom I have been honored to teach. I have also found that many of my best conversations and deepest laughs in recent years through the group of people associated with the Los Angeles Public School Gallery, including Anita- Marie Martínez, David de la Torre, Samantha Blanca, Amiri Barksdale, Alden Wood, Vladimir Gallegos, Lydia McHam, and Julio Cervantes. I appreciate the friendships of Maclen Zilber, Kimberley West, Willa Lim, Allison Arch, Samuel Sewall, Jeremy Blasi, Erin Trapp, and Nancy Steffan, who have hiked faster than me, blocked my jump shots, beat me at board games, and shared in that unending human conversation about all that is most meaningful and valuable in life. I am also very lucky to have a wonderful group of friends from my days at Santa Cruz, whose passion for life and critical thinking made me, and continue to make me who I am: Morgan Adamson, Travis Workman, Dave Youssef, Alexander Day, and Leila Binder foremost among them. Ours was a small and imperfect utopia, and one that ensured I would never abandon my hopes for utopian social change. I was lucky to have worked with Earl Jackson, Jr. as an undergraduate there, and Barry Smolin in high school in Los Angeles. Together they not only helped deepen my love of literature, but furthered my desire to investigate the problems it poses, even at the expense of many hours of sleep over the years. ix I am grateful for the family that I have and the lessons I learned. My brother shares with me a passion for the search for knowledge, my grandmother brought an always-welcome dark humor and relentlessness, and my father, whose sense of justice and garage full of books—that infinite Library of Babel left to me at age fifteen—fill my heart, and my shelves, respectively, to this day. I am grateful to my stepfather Henry Cabala, whose political critiques, humor, insights, and compassion have helped me through these years. Above all, I am grateful for my mother whose humor, quirkiness, and willingness to speak openly about all the joy and despair of life taught me, more than anyone, about the ultimate interpersonal values: love for our vulnerabilities and acceptance of our flaws. In all of this, Amanda Smith has been an unerring source of support, laughter, intellectual exchange, and love. We have had so many adventures and I’ve learned so much about the journey toward intimacy by being with you throughout the years. I look forward to all the adventures life holds for us next.

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