The Critical Poem: Borges, Paz, and Other Language-Centered Poets in Latin America

In this book, scholar Thorpe Running shows that a skeptical approach to both language and poetry places eight poets from three countries in Latin America within a strain of poetry prefigured by Stephane Mallarme.
Octavio Paz, Jorge Luis Borges, Roberto Juarroz, Alejandra Pizarnik, Alberto Girri, Juan Luis Martinez, Gonzalo Millan, and David Huerta span three different generations. In addition to their age and geographical differences, their poetry bears no obvious similarities. All eight, however, are poetas pensantes, or thinking poets, and underlying the work of these probing writers is the disturbing question: Does language do what it is supposed to do? The answer is negative for all these poets who see their poems as being made up of words that don't work.

Thorpe Running is Professor of Spanish in the Department of Modern and Classical Languages at St. John's University and College of St. Benedict in Minnesota.