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Néstor Perlongher

The Poetic Search for an Argentine Marginal Voice

The Poetry and Poetics of Néstor Perlongher is the first full-length study in English of the highly regarded and influential Argentine poet and anthropologist and his pioneering body of work. Taking on some of the most dynamic and conflictive themes of modern-day Latin America, Perlongher’s (1949–92) poetry explores dictatorship, national identity, exile, issues of gender and marginal sexualities, and modern-day esoteric religious ritual—all enmeshed within an anthropological outlook that challenged the very limits of the human being and attacked the most entrenched of contemporary taboos. This vital study analyzes and contextualizes his work while offering important tools for reading and understanding experimental verse and providing an innovative contribution for all those interested in Latin American literary and cultural studies.

256 pages | 5 1/2 x 8 1/2 | © 2008

Poetry


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Table of Contents

Series Editors’ Foreword
Acknowledgements
 
Chapter 1   Towards a Reading of Perlongher
Introduction: Sex, Drugs, Baroque ’n’ Roll
Perlongher’s Poetic Search
Perlongher and Academe: Potential Critical Risks
Other Critical Approaches to Perlongher
Perlongher and Politics: ’Evita vive’
Methodology
 
Chapter 2  Perlongher and Territory
Introduction
Border-crossing in Austria-Hungria
The Malvinas Conflict in Perlongher’s Work
Alambres and Exile
Hule: State Power and Territory
Perlongher’s Nomadology
Mystical Territory
 
Chapter 3  Perlongher and the Avant-garde
Introduction
Perlongher’s Avant-garde Genealogy
   The Body and Transgression: Enrique Molina
   Nonsense and Faecality: Antonin Artaud
   Sex in the City: Oliverio Girondo
   Poetic Innovation and Peotic Engagement: Juan Gelman
Perlongher’s Other Genealogy
   Expanding the Poetic Lexicon: César Vallejo
   Poesía social: Raul González Tuñón
Post-poesía social: Perlongher’s Project
 
Chapter 4  Perlongher and the Travesti
Introduction
Becoming Evita: Perlongher and Feminism
The Politics of Desire
   Grammar and Gender
   The Travesti as Micropolitical Resistance
   ’A Painful Relationship’: Perlongher, Left-wing Politics and its Alternatives
Mysticism and the Travesti
   Becoming-woman / Becoming-stuck
   Becoming-mystic
 
Chapter 5  Perlonger’s Barroco
Introduction
Perlongher’s Retrospective Barroco
Neobarroco/Neobarroso/Barroco
The Neobarroco as Movement
Ghetto Slang and Metaphors
The Observational and Abstract Barroco
   The Observational Barroco
   The Abstract Barroco
On Kitsch in Perlongher
Last Poems: A Different Barroco?
 
Chapter 6  Perlongher’s Mysticism
Introduction
Mystical Masochism
Mystical Withdrawal
Mystical Teleology
 
Conclusion
Works Cited
Index

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