Poetry

Poetry

The pinnacle of Dominican poetry in the 19th century was in the period of Salomé Ureña, José Joaquín Pérez and Gastón Fernando Deligne, three pillars of our modern poetry in their political, indigenous and psychological inclinations. But it was not until the 20th century that our poetry reached the category of “modern”, with the rise of the “vanguardia”, a literary movement that focused on the renaissance and rebirth of poetry.

Poetry is the most cultivated genre in the country, from Manuel María Valencia, the first romantic poet, through the time of Fabio Fiallo and others that are influenced by European literary trends, up to the incipient arrival of Modernism in the 3 important figures of Valentín Giro, Ricardo Pérez Alfonseca and Osvaldo Bazil. Their influences on Darío waned with the apparition of Postumismo around 1921. Such is the case of Otilio Vigil Díaz, who introduced the vanguardias into Dominican verse and was the great regenerator of the our poetry, influenced by French Symbolism. He founded the first one-person poetic movement, a term that also describes Zacarias Espinal and Vedrinismo, named for its attempts to pirouette in the air with its verses like French aviator Jules Vedrines.

Vigil Díaz introduced modernity to the Dominican Republic upon creating free verse and the poem in prose in his books Góndolas (1912) and Galeras de Pafos (1921). After him, Dominican poetry underwent another significant movement, represented by Domingo Moreno Jimenes, along with the philosopher Andrés Avelino y the poet Rafael Augusto Zorrilla, upon the founding of Postumismo, in 1921. Together they wrote a manifesto denying the vanguardias and supporting a nationalist poetry that brought back a focus on local color, the countryside and the Dominican identity. With Postumismo, the Dominican poetic tradition was renewed and revived for the new voices that were to come. The next poetic movement to arrive was Poesía Sorprendida (Surprised Poetry), made up of great poets such as Franklin Miese Burgos, Antonio Fernández Spencer, Aída Cartagena Portalatín, Freddy Gatón Arce, among others. This group of poets’ motto was “poetry with the universal man”, in direct opposition to Postumismo.

Afterward, a generation of Independents from the 40s followed, composed of Manuel del Cabral, Héctor Incháustegui Cabral, Pedro Mir and Tomás Hernández Franco, who published landmark poems such as “Compadre Mon”, “Hay un país en el mundo”, “Poema de una sola angustia” and “Yelidá”. From the Surprised Poets, another group of poets arose, named the Generation of ’48, and composed of, among others, Víctor Villegas, Lupo Gernández, Rueda, Luis Alfredo Torres, Rafael Valera Benítez, Abelardo Vicioso, etc. In the 60s, sparked by the fall of the Trujillo regime, the writers of the Generation of ’60 emerged, including Marcio Valoz Maggiolo, Ramón Francisco, René del Risco, Jeannette Miller and Miguel Alfonseca. In the same decade, and as a result of the War of April 1965, the Postwar Poets or Joven Poesía movement arose, incorporating Mateo Morrison, Andrés L. Mate, Enriquillo Sánchez, Tony Raful, Alexis Gómez Rosa, Enrique Eusebio, Soledad Álvarez among others. In the 80s, a poetic movement appeared that produced a rupture from the previous generation upon distancing itself from all things ideological and historical. They created poetry of thought and reflection on themes that were not social, but philosophical or erotic or on death, among other subjects. Among these poets are José Mármol, Plinio Chahín, Dionisio de Jesús, Médar Serrata, Víctor Bidó, José Alejandro Peña, etc. Two poets of transition from the end of the 1970s to the 1980s should be mentioned: José Enrique García, author of the book El Fabulador and Cayo Claudio Espinal, author of the books Utopía de los vínculos and Banquetes de aflicción.

Basilio Belliard