Recent Poetry and the Essential Word

Abstract

Postmodern poetry resists classification in tight compartments. After last artificially-named group of novisimos in 60s, evolution of poetry in Spain has followed different and at times divergent paths. The novisimos had reacted against social poetry, denouncing its lack of attention to artistry, almost prosaic quality, subservience to theme, and produced elaborate creations with an emphasis on form and exquisite and more hermetic word and subject. Obeying law of corsi e ricorsi, there was a certain return in 80s to simpler expression which, however, does not pretend to be that of man on street reflecting historical circumstance, but rather a search for essences, for eternal values. Each poet—M.V. Atencia, Jesus Munarriz, and Luis Sunen can serve as examples of essential inclination—traces his own way and creates a personal poetics. Faith in word is their common denominator. This turn to simplicity can also be observed in last works of such poets as Carvajal, Gimferrer and Siles, who admit, however, greater ambiguity of word and intention. This article is available in Studies in 20th Century Literature: http://newprairiepress.org/sttcl/vol16/iss1/9 Recent Spanish Poetry and Essential Word Birute Ciplijauskaite University of Wisconsin-Madison Translated by Peter Browne Lo apretado vale en verso y en prosa mas que lo suelto, el rayo mas que la nube. The compressed is worth more in verse and in prose than unbound, ray more than cloud. J. R. J. Jean Francois Lyotard attempts to establish a division between two terms that have been alluded to by critics frequently and with remarkable differences during last few years, modern and postmodern. As examples he chooses two nearly contemporary authors. Proust would embody modern, since [he] calls forth unpresentable by means of language unaltered in its syntax and vocabulary, while Joyce allows unpresentable to become perceptible in his writing itself, in signifier (341). In postmodern, emphasis is on process, on constant change and absence of determinate form. The text is understood as an event, while stress is placed on its fluctuating quality. In accordance with negation of existence of a single reality or of a single text as maintained by deconstructionists or those poets belonging to L-AN-G-U-A-G-E group in North America, John Cage affirms that the world, real is not an object. It is a process (Perloff 196). Such a view leads to skepticism and encourages linguistic structures that highlight ludic aspect of creative task. Some of these procedures would coincide on surface level with what Julia Barella observes in work of novisimos who, according to her, substituted reflection for experimentation and free play, and order