The Humanization of Poetry: An Appraisal of Gloria Fuertes

Abstract

Gloria Fuertes is considered a leader in contemporary peninsular poetry, and yet a clear under- standing of her poetics and of her uniqueness has not been achieved. Her distinctive poetics and persona are here considered in the context of her relationship to the peninsular poets of her generation and the public that she creates. The form of her poems suggests that Gloria Fuertes transforms our perception of poetry by demystifying the poet and by degentrifying poetic language. Her poems typically are of a dual nature, a simple narration which, at the same time, presents a literary topos in a new light. Fuertes creates a new poetics by substituting each of the elements of the poetic discourse, the text, the poet, and the reader. She replaces them with her own popularized versions, thus creating a powerful poetic style that answers the quest of her genera- tion for a new aesthetics of poetry.