El Infrarrealismo como contrapoética en la simbólica del poder A dissertation submitted to the Graduate School Of the University of Cincinnati In the partial fulfillment of the Requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY In the Department of Romance Languages and Literatures Of the McMicken College of Arts and Sciences By Milton Medellin M.A. in Spanish University of Cincinnati, 2012 Committee Chair: Dr. Nicasio Urbina i Abstract My dissertation focuses on a group of underground and outsider poets called Infrarrealismo. This group formed in Mexico between the years 1975-1977 as counter-poetics literary movement with the determination to criticize the established poetry of that time along with the rational aesthetic approach to the poetry experience and the political and cultural aspects of the forming of a literary canon. The antecedents of this group of infrarrealistas poets can be found in the counter-cultural poetic movements from South America in the sixties that all together manifested an expression of what Hugh Fox calls “inter-American awareness”. This inter-American awareness was the result of the political and economic facts of the continent after the Cuban Revolution in the fifties and the Alliance for Progress in the sixties. All this, along with the experience of the dictatorship in different countries of South America, formed the cultural condition so different groups of counter-cultural poetic movements emerged in places like Colombia, Venezuela and Ecuador, among others. Counter-cultural movements like Nadaísmo, El Techo de la Ballena and Tzántzicos promoted rebellious cultural and political manifestation against the regimes imposed on their countries and looking for a different meaning of poetry and culture. The Mexican history of poetry rebellion was important for the infrarrealistas too. The Estridentismo movement, and avant-garde poetry group created in 1921 as an opposition the official poetry of that time, was a very important inspiration for the Infrarrealismo. The Estridentistas where looking for a new poetry form, filled with vitalism, political compromise and avant-garde creative forms based on the Futurism and Ultraism. Along with Estridentismo, the influence of magazines like The Plumed Horn and Pájaro Cascabel, the canonical presence of Nobel Prize Octavio Paz and the counter-cultural inspiration ii from the poet Efrain Huerta -who was a writer that searched for new vital forms of poetic expression in the interstitial cracks of literary culture-, were very important facts in the creation of a counter poetic anti-canonical movement like Infrarrealismo. In the late seventies, the Nobel Prize Octavio Paz was a very important political and cultural presence in the creation of culture and the publishing domain in Mexico City. In order to consecrate himself as the judge and jury of what poetry should be, so it could be accepted in magazines and public cultural spaces, Paz implemented a symbolic violence excluding all that didn’t were part of his canonical notion of poetry. The Infrarrealismo movement, using underground magazines, counter-poetic boycotts and public readings and performances, tried to criticize Paz canonical configuration of literature, putting themselves in the margin of culture as outsider writers and creating a counter-canon that I call “The counter-poetics in the symbolic of power”. The creative result of this poetical dialectic between canonical imposed literature and counter-poetics, is what I call “lyrical counter-poetics”: a poetry full of vitalism, bearing witness of the outsiders and the contradictions of the marginal culture, proposing new ways of experiencing and circulating poetry, beyond the canon and the stablished cultural symbolism. iii iv Dedicatoria A mi madre, quien me observa desde el Ser. v Agradecimientos Agradezco a todas las personas que con su inspiración y apoyo han guiado mi camino: amigos-as, profesores-as, maestros-as y sobre todo a mi familia. A los compañeros de viaje en esta etapa de RLL: a Paola y al Mayor. Al Tocayo. A quienes en las calles de Cincinnati me dieron testimonio del espíritu. Agradezco la presencia profética de Bill Hicks, George Carlin, Louis C.K, Doug Stanhope y Eddie Griffin, quienes me enseñaron a comprender el impulso liberador oculto en la historia de los Estados Unidos de América. Al magisterio de Richard Rohr y Thomas Merton. A Viridiana Romano Quintana y a Cristy, sin quienes jamás lo habría logrado. A Netza, a Solisón. A José Vicente Anaya por su inspiración y fuerza. A Ramón Javier Ayala por instigar estos pasos por la contrapoética. A mis profesores de filosofía en la UATx, en especial a Rocío Lucero Muñoz y María del Rayo Morán por su inquebrantable ayuda siempre. A mi querido Maestro Ricardo Avilés. Finalmente, doy gracias a Dios Padre-Madre-Todo-Compasivo, a su Hijo y al Espíritu Santo que acompañó mis días de soledad. vi Tabla de contenido Abstract .......................................................................................................................................... ii Dedicatoria..................................................................................................................................... v Agradecimientos ........................................................................................................................... vi Introducción .................................................................................................................................. 1 1. Movimientos poéticos marginales latinoamericanos en la década de los sesenta ............... 5 1.1 La unidad de consciencia inter-americana en América Latina ...................................... 5 1.2 El Nadaísmo, la vanguardia perdida y la violencia .......................................................... 8 1.3 El techo de la Ballena y la poética de la subversión ....................................................... 17 1.4 Los Tzántzicos y la poesía como praxis social ................................................................ 28 1.5 Poesía y Revolución en Centroamérica: Nicaragua y El Salvador ............................... 37 1.5.1 Consideraciones iniciales ........................................................................................... 37 1.5.2 Ernesto Cardenal y el Frente Ventana ..................................................................... 39 1.5.3 Del Círculo Literario Universitario y la Generación Comprometida: Roque Dalton .................................................................................................................................... 46 1.6 Coetáneos y antecesores: Movimiento Hora Zero .......................................................... 55 1.7 La continuidad en la resonancia ................................................................................. 59 2. El movimiento infrarrealista y su contexto en la tradición literaria mexicana ................. 62 2.1 México como ruta migratoria del intelectual latinoamericano ..................................... 62 2.2 El Estridentismo: genealogía vital en el contexto mexicano .......................................... 65 2.3 El Corno Emplumado y Pájaro Cascabel: cruce de caminos .......................................... 80 2.4 La Espiga Amotinada ....................................................................................................... 88 2.5 Octavio Paz y Efraín Huerta: paradigmas en los años sesenta ..................................... 94 3. violencia simbólica paceana y revuelta infrarrealista: tensión dialéctica cultural y paradoja del sentido literario ................................................................................................... 113 3.1 La figura paceana y su poder simbólico ........................................................................ 113 3.2 Revuelta infrarrealista: manifiestos, testimonios y contra-poder .............................. 127 3.3 Un incidente histórico ..................................................................................................... 150 3.4 Infrarrealismo como contra-poética: fisuras y espacios intersticiales ....................... 154 4. La poesía infrarrealista: sus dimensiones, sus límites y posibilidades en el sentido de una lírica contrapoética ................................................................................................................... 162 4.1 Palabras iniciales ............................................................................................................. 162 vii 4.2 Outsiders, profecía negativa, blues y contracultura: cuadrante para una lírica ....... 163 4.3. El sentido de una lírica contrapoética .......................................................................... 174 4.4 El Infrarrealismo en su lírica contrapoética ................................................................. 178 4. 5 Contrapoética Infrarrealista: límites y posibilidades ................................................. 192 Conclusiones .............................................................................................................................. 202 ANEXO ...................................................................................................................................... 205 ANEXO CAP. 4 ..................................................................................................................... 206 BIBLIOGRAFIA....................................................................................................................... 221