A river made of memories: towards the creation of a great poem

Abstract

The following text aims to introduce the dossier If the River Opened Its Eyes: Anthology of Continuity, a selection of contemporary Venezuelan poetry prepared by the present authors as a critical approach to how this generation engages with diverse traditions. Although still in progress, the anthology—developed under the pan-Hispanic poetry project of the Mexican magazine Círculo de Poesía—seeks to gather the scattered voices of recent poetry around a shared concern: the identity problem as it relates to corporeality, dissection, language, the dialogue between poetry and other arts, and poetry criticism in Venezuela. The latter aspect was accompanied by a survey answered by most of the poets in the sample, aiming to discover what our selected authors are reading. Altogether, this text attempts to trace a line of continuity amid the multiple discontinuities that shape both the voices featured and the connections they establish with various artistic traditions.

Keywords: Body, identity, continuity, Venezuelan poetry criticism, pan-Hispanic poetry.