Features

The subterranean baroque of Roger Santiváñez

Photo of Roger Santiváñez by Mito Tumi, via Wikimedia Commons.

This portfolio brings together writing by Peruvian poet Roger Santiváñez’s beginning in the mid-1980s and into the early 1990s, or from his book Homenaje para iniciados to his 1991 book Symbol.

Non-object art

From representation to action

Photo courtesy of Clemente Padín.

In a recording of a performance from Clemente Padín’s archives described by Jill Kuhnheim, Padín reads a poem to a group of schoolchildren until he reaches the line “‘este verso debe repetirse’ [this line should be repeated].” Taking his own words as instruction, Padín closes the gap between the text of the poem and its performance, repeating the words again and again until one of the children exclaims “‘este verso debe culminar’ [this line should finish].” Rather than an interruption of a prescripted performance, the playful, improvisatory response of the child perfectly completes Padín’s poem. 

Les chemins

An introduction to contemporary Ivorian poetry

Photo by Todd Fredson.

So, which Côte d’Ivoire? Yet, even that designation is not so stable — leftist nationalists of the recent wars often proclaim, not Côte d’Ivoire, but the state of Éburnie; Éburnie is proposed as a change to the country name, a change that would help move the country further from the status of residual French colony or international resource extraction zone. And as the country split during the civil wars, rebels in the north referred to a Republic of the North. So, who is an Ivorian poet?