The Avant-Garde and the Popular: Rethinking Juan Ramírez Ruiz\'s Un par de vueltas por la realidad

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The Avant-Garde and the Popular: Rethinking Juan Ramírez Ruiz’s Un par de vueltas por la realidad ❦

Javier García Liendo

In 1971 Peruvian neo-avant-garde writer Juan Ramírez Ruiz published his first collection of poems, entitled Un par de vueltas por la realidad (UPVR in what follows). A year before, along with Jorge Pimentel, he had founded Movimiento Hora Zero, an agitprop poetic group that barged into the scene from the margins of the literary institution and soon influenced other Latin American authors and literary movements like Roberto Bolaño and the Mexican infrarrealismo. As Peruvian literary critic Antonio Cornejo Polar has observed, until this moment poetry production in Peru had been characterized by individualities. However, with Hora Zero, the collective organization takes precedence, as its group identity is forged through manifestos, controversies, magazines and recitals (“Literatura” 243). UPVR was a pivotal publication for Hora Zero, since it included one of the first organic collections of poems to be published by one of its members, as well as the movement’s programmatic documents: “Palabras Urgentes,” “El punto sobre la i,” “Poder de la poesía joven,” and “Poesía Integral.”1 In these manifestos, Hora Zero espoused a parricidal attitude typical of most avant-garde movements, denouncing the lack of authenticity of almost all previous Peruvian poets. Not even the “poesía social” (politically engaged poetry) of the 1950s and 1 Ramírez Ruiz and Pimentel are the expressed authors of “Palabras urgentes.” “Poder de la poesía joven” was signed by Movimiento Hora Zero. “El punto sobre la i” and “Poesía integral” were signed only by Ramírez Ruiz.

MLN 131 (2016): 419–441 © 2016 by Johns Hopkins University Press

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1960s escaped their ruthless indictment, and it was dismissed as merely “inconsequential screams” (Ramírez Ruiz and Pimentel 17). Their own literary practice, on the other hand, was conceived as the point of departure for the advent of a new poetry that would abolish the separation between art and life. The defining feature of this aesthetic, as formulated in “Poesía Integral,” was the absolute rejection of lyrical poetry in favor of an avant-garde poetry that would reunify the objective and subjective dimensions of experience (“lo objetivo-subjetivo vital”), and would ultimately lead an all-encompassing revolution (110–11). Despite UPVR’s significance for Hora Zero, its critical reception has varied greatly. After garnering a lukewarm reception during the 1970s, interest in the volume sparked in the mid-1980s, when its poems began to appear in anthologies and critical studies.2 Hitherto, UPVR has been studied in the context of Peruvian poetry production as a whole (Zapata and Mazzotti; Cornejo Polar, “Literatura”; Orihuela), and of the Latin American neo-avant-garde (Galindo). Critics have pointed out the experimental attitude of the book and its radical political stance. The desire to represent urban subaltern subjects evinced in the poems has also been highlighted (Vilanova; Higgins; Zevallos Aguilar, “Notas”). More recently, Fredy Roncalla has edited a volume that compiles new readings of, and homages to, Ramírez Ruiz. While several of the texts included discuss UPVR, as a whole the essays do not offer a consensus on its critical value. Juan Zevallos Aguilar stresses the importance of UPVR for the study of migration in Peruvian literature (“Un par”). Yet, on the other hand, Juan Carlos Lázaro celebrates the utopic impulse behind the poems, but argues that the theory behind its poesía integral amounted to little more than a “failed theory ... a tautology, without any practical realization” (112). Most importantly, and despite the amount of critical attention given to Ramírez Ruiz’s poetry, there are still relatively few studies that approach UPVR from the perspective of the avant-garde. This article will attempt to fill this void and highlight the book’s importance for the study of avant-garde and neo-avant-garde movements in Peru and beyond. I will explore how UPVR’s poems attempt to situate avantgarde poetry in the context of the major sociocultural transformations underway in Peru at the end of the 1960s. Key to this endeavor were Ramírez Ruiz’s efforts to comprehend the material conditions 2 With the exception of the anthology and critical study on the poetic production in Peru during the 1970s prepared by José Miguel Oviedo, the publication of UPVR did not attract critics’ attention. With regards to the anthologies and critical studies from the 1980s, see the books edited by Cabel, and Falla and Carrillo.

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of culture at the time in order to design a strategy to intervene in them.3 In his case, this meant a poetic elaboration of the possibilities to engage urban popular culture and the avant-garde. Latin American avant-gardes have a long history of experimentation with popular culture. As Viviana Gelado has studied, “the popular,” in all its various and complex iterations specific to each cultural area (African-American cultures, indigenous cultures, urban cultures), functioned as a catalyst for Latin American avant-garde movements in their challenge and denunciation of the “institution of art” (36).4 By alluding to cultures traditionally relegated to the “periphery” of the cultural sphere on the basis of their ethnic or class components, references to and uses of “the popular” played a key role in the radicalization of artistic production. Latin American neo-avant-garde movements (1960-1970), and in particular, Hispanic American colloquial poetry, continued this tradition. UPVR’s aesthetic filiation with the latter is undeniable, since its poems evince several of the formal characteristics that Carmen Alemany has detailed for colloquial or conversational poetry: among others, the need to break with traditional poetic language, the treatment of everyday topics, references to films and television series, and political commentaries and denunciation (71–150).5 However, in UPVR, “the popular” has an additional layer of meaning, since the poems center on an emerging urban popular culture connected to the country’s transition from rural to predominantly urban during the second half of the twentieth century. Through this understanding of popular culture, UPVR distances itself from the dominant debates concerning Peruvian literature since the advent of indigenismo in the 1920s that had revolved around the ethnic component of the nation.6 In UPVR the urban popular experience is not portrayed as the triumph of a modernization project. Rather, it is depicted as an unsettling transformation of popular subjectivity and cultural practices that leaves its subjects scrambling to find ways to deal with the sense of loneliness and dispossession. Oscillating between a realist approach and utopic excess, Ramírez Ruiz places this experience at the center I am paraphrasing here Walter Benjamin’s well-known reading of Tretiakov’s work. Gelado dialogues here with Bürger’s theory of the avant-garde. On the other hand, the importance of the connection between the avant-garde and popular culture has been studied with regards to the literary production in other regions (see Bru; Silverman). 5 A paradigmatic example of this type of poetry would be Ernesto Cardenal’s psalms. In these poems, the poet experiments with the biblical form, injecting it with a political component that wrests it from its place within official religious doctrine and brings it closer to popular religions practised by peasants and other popular groups (Cardenal). 6 See, for example, Cornejo Polar (145–214). 3 4

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of his aesthetic endeavor, conceiving it as a transforming agent that prompts him to redefine the form of his poetry with the purpose of engaging with it, as well as engaging its new social actors as potential audience. In order to develop this argument, I will center my analysis on the section of UPVR titled “Media docena de inconvenientes por remediar” (“Half a dozen problems to remedy”), for it contains the clearest evidence of the author’s efforts to connect his poetry with the experience of the popular masses in the city. Formal analysis will show how Ramírez Ruiz experiments in these poems with certain features of Peruvian tabloid newspapers at the time. More specifically, with the sections of the tabloids where readers’ ads—requesting help finding a missing person or searching for a love connection—were printed. This type of ad, which had become increasingly more common at the time of UPVR publication, evinces a popular use of the tabloid print culture that, nonetheless, was deemed marginal or irrelevant by the cultural policies of the State, and by most intellectuals. However, I contend that Ramírez Ruiz identifies in these ads a dynamic of popular communication that seeks to (re)create networks of solidarity among the popular sectors to overcome the difficulties of life in the city. Additionally, the ads highlight for him the potential value of these new popular readers for avant-garde poetry. As I will discuss later, this realization was at the core of how Ramírez Ruiz conceived avant-garde poetry and revolution could come together in Peru. After offering a brief summary of the social, cultural, and political conditions at the time of UPVR’s publication, I will study a paradigmatic example of Peruvian tabloids during the 1960s and 1970s, Última hora. Subsequently, I will proceed to a formal analysis of the poems in “Media docena” that will show how the author experiments, appropriates, and reworks the format and content of the aforementioned tabloid’s sections in order to represent and engage the popular masses. Finally, I will discuss how the connection between popular culture and avant-garde poetry relates to the poet’s revolutionary agenda as enunciated in the manifestos that frame the book. I contend that Ramírez Ruiz’s imaginary of revolution is at odds with the one championed by General Juan Velasco Alvarado, whose military regime had presented itself as the true “Peruvian Revolution.”

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Popular Overflow in the City In a few short decades starting in the 1940s, the face of the Peruvian nation transformed from rural to predominantly urban. Sustained population growth and mass immigration from Andean and Amazonian provinces to coastal cities contributed to consolidate this tendency. The number of inhabitants in Lima grew exponentially between the decades of the 1940s and the 1950s: from 645,000 to 1.9 million (Fernández 59). These waves of migration produced what José Matos Mar has called a “popular overflow and the crisis of the State.” The migrant masses had no space to settle in the cities, which led to the formation of barriadas (shanty towns) along the urban periphery. Similarly, there was no space for them in the industrialization processes set forth by the government, nor were there enough sources of waged work for them to be organized and inserted in the productive structure of the State. As a result, “for most migrants … the city meant disappointment, misery and the struggle to survive” (Vilanova 2). Increased access to education without corresponding social mobility caused popular unrest to surge dramatically both in the cities and in the countryside, challenging existing power relations. In the 1960s, Fernando Belaúnde’s first government (1963–1968) attempted to implement a nationalist project capable of integrating the various social classes into a productive structure increasingly dependent on the United States. However, the failure of this project soon became clear, as the government was unable to manage the rapidly increasing volume of migration and the actions of radical leftist groups that emulated the Cuban Revolution. In 1968, a coup d’état led by General Juan Velasco Alvarado ended Belaúnde’s tenure and installed in power the Revolutionary Government of the Armed Forces. Velasco’s government conceived of itself as a nationalist regime whose main objectives were to combat communism and capitalism’s imperial powers, reduce Peru’s dependence on foreign capital, and neutralize a potential uprising driven by the “emergencia popular” (Cotler 126–27). Among the measures taken by Velasco’s administration to bring forth the promised structural transformation of Peruvian society were the nationalization of the oil industry, an agrarian reform, the socialization of all means of communication, several literacy campaigns, and the creation of peasant and workers’ organizations nationwide. Effectively, the Revolutionary Government’s actions amounted to the institutionalization of the revolution. Major transformations also took place in the cultural arena. Urbanization and migration had a great impact on the new urban popular

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culture taking shape at the time, generating an imaginary of appropriation and fusion, as well as new forms of expressions associated with the urban experience. The most studied case in this regard has been the metamorphosis of Andean music in Lima, where it encountered new audiences and technological mediations, reaching its pinnacle during the 1980s (Lloréns). Nonetheless, another concomitant transformation was also underway. While literacy and education had been concerns for Peruvian leaders since the beginning of the century, in the 1940s the State intensified its efforts to reform and expand educational opportunities as a tool for nation-building. Consequently, by the end of the 1960s, large sectors of the population that had been historically marginalized gained access to school enrollment—even to the university (Vilanova 1). This democratization of education, coupled with a growing interest among popular sectors in reading and writing, had a profound effect on Peruvian culture, particularly print culture. On the one hand, a new audience, comprised of new popular readers, emerged. Most of its members, however, turned their attention away from print culture’s traditional literary objects (novels, poetry), and favored instead print objects typically associated with the masses: tabloids, comic books, cowboy novels. On the other hand, the field of print culture producers began to diversify, for instance with the inclusion of young writers from provincial origins. Juan Ramírez Ruiz and Hora Zero emerged from this context. Many of Hora Zero’s members were immigrants from the provinces to Lima that benefited from the expanded access to the university. Since they, in a sense, took part in it, their movimiento was socially and politically marked by the popular overflow in the city. The urban experience of the popular sectors permeated their poetry: from images of “paraderos” (bus stops) and references to rock and movies to their adoption of a “new language” based on the habla popular. Moreover, it permeated their aesthetic-political practice, for it became the nucleus that brought together poetry, popular culture and revolution. In order to begin to explore how this ambitious avant-garde project comes together in UPVR, in the next section I will direct my attention to the rise in popularity of tabloid publications in Peru beginning in 1950. I will show how it is possible to identify in its pages the emergence of a new popular reading public, as well as the particular ways in which this new audience made use of certain sections of these periodicals. As will be discussed later, these objects and these uses play a significant role in UPVR.

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Tabloids and the Popular Reader With the expansion of the popular reading audience, tabloids began to proliferate. Even though the first Peruvian tabloide, La Crónica, dates back to 1912, the second half of the twentieth century was a golden age for this type of publication, some of which reached print runs of up to 100,000 copies. One of the most emblematic examples of this phenomenon was Última Hora. Founded in 1950, it was the first Peruvian tabloid conceived for a massive audience (Gargurevich 11). Its young editor-in-chief, Raúl Villarán, an avid reader of Dos Passos and Life magazine, quickly realized that the key to selling tens of thousands of copies was to appeal to this new set of popular readers (“nuevos limeños,” “migrantes del interior”) and their desire to be entertained (Gargurevich 216). Following the examples set forth by their American and British counterparts, Peruvian tabloids adopted a format that prioritized local news, sports, reviews of radio programs, and advice columns (in contrast with “traditional” newspapers where politics and op-ed pieces still dominated a substantial portion of the pages). Particularly novel for Peruvian print culture—and of special interest to my analysis—were two of Última Hora’s most popular sections: “Hoy por Ti Mañana por Mí” and “Correo del Corazón.”7 Gargurevich calls these “human interest columns,” and explains that Última Hora was one of the first Peruvian papers to experiment with this type of content, to huge success (Gargurevich 216). “Hoy” would publish pleas for help—ranging from assistance locating missing persons (mostly children) to fundraising for an elderly woman or an ill man. For example, from Figure 1: “NELIDA OLIDEN, mother of 8 children, one of them disabled, begs the humanitarian people who read this newspaper for help building her little house, so that they can avoid living in the street. The Callao Public Works Committee has granted her with a small lot where she can build [her house]” (“Hoy” Aug. 10).8 The complete name of the “victim,” printed in bold and all-caps, would serve as title to the notice, which usually also included the victim’s age, a picture (in the case of disappearances), and an address where readers were instructed to send information or donations. No explanation or motive for the disappearances was ever provided. Instead, it was left up to the readers to conjure up their 7 The first titled can be translated to English as “I’ll scratch your back if you scratch mine”; the second as “Mail from the Heart.” 8 All examples used in this section come from a selection of Última Hora issues from 1968. However, similar examples can be found in previous and subsequent years. All translations are mine.

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own hypotheses: “The parents of JORGE VARGAS POBLETE, 13 years old, are searching for him. They are very worried because they have not heard from their youngest son. He disappeared on July 29th and nobody knows his location, even though they have searched for him in various places” (“Hoy” Aug. 10).9 “Correo,” on the other hand, was structured like a personal ads service for people searching for friends or romantic partners (front cover image). Due to the nature of the ads, those writing in would usually sign only with one or two initials, and in some cases, would include the number of their libreta electoral or some other identification to give validity (“seriedad”) to their requests. Anyone interested was asked to send his or her reply to a post office or directly to the newspaper. Whereas “Hoy” appealed to the readers’ generosity and desire to help others like them, in “Correo” the desire for companionship and the search for hope intermingled with romantic imaginaries and pragmatic requirements. This can be seen, for example, in the following ad: “Divorced young woman from Cuzco, 18 years old, wants to meet a gentleman with a profession, hard working and responsible, who wants to establish a home for the rest of his life. Physical appearance is not important, but must be noble. Serious replies should be sent to Jesús G.B.V. La Punta Post Office” (“Correo” Jan. 16).10 Several similarities between the columns are worth noting: first, particularly in the case of “Hoy,” there is uniformity in the language and enunciation of the notices. Even though both sections dealt with serious matters, the words chosen eschew excessive emotion and rather, implicitly categorize these events as everyday occurrences. This editorial choice is surprising, since these columns were published alongside sensationalist news and flashy publicity. On the other hand, and in contrast with the way content was generated for other sections of Última Hora (authored by reporters, editors, or column contributors), the material for “Hoy” and “Correo” came directly from readers’ submissions, edited by the paper to loosely conform to the aforementioned model. Most persons featured in both columns (whether the authors of the ads or those receiving help) came 9 “JORGE VARGAS POBLETE, de 13 años de edad, es buscado por sus padres quienes se encuentran muy preocupados al no tener noticias de su menor hijo. El desapareció el 29 de Julio y hasta el momento nadie da razón de su paradero a pesar que lo buscan por diferentes lugares.” 10 “Cuzqueñita divorciada, de 18 años de edad desea conocer a caballero profesional, trabajador y responsable, que piense formar un hogar para toda la vida. El físico no interesa pero sí que tenga nobles sentimientos. Contestar con toda seriedad a Jesús G.B. V. Correo de la Punta.”

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from humble origins, as evidenced by the locations referenced in the notices and ads: Barriada Primero de Mayo, La Victoria, La Parada, La Punta, Rímac, Collique 2a Zona, Manzana H, Lote 17. Moreover, many of them were migrants from the provinces, a fact that in some instances is highlighted, presumably as a desirable trait in a mate or as a clue to signal belonging to the same community: “Countryman, 28 years old, dark-skinned, ugly but responsible and with a good heart, wants to meet a young lady over 18, with good moral qualities and sincere in her acts. Reply to the pseudonym Incio Cruz, Lima Central Post Office” (“Correo” Mar. 18).11 On other occasions, nonetheless, a reference to an individual’s provincial origin brings to the fore the harshness of the transit to the capital, and the difficulty of settling in: “CRISOL GEREMIAS FLORES RAMOS, 16 years old, traveled from the Queropalca district (Department of Huánuco) through the route: Oyón-Churín-Huacho Lima on Friday of last week, is searched for by his uncle Féliz Ramos Falcón, who is worried because he has not heard from the minor” (“Hoy” Aug. 16).12 Above all, these columns were significant (and quickly imitated by Última Hora’s competitors, such as the newspaper OJO) because they constituted spaces where the humanity (needs, hopes, desires) of tabloid readers shone through. Harry Cocks, who has studied the history of personal ads, links their growing social acceptability towards the end of the nineteenth century to the urbanization of Great Britain: With much of Britain’s population living in cities by the 1890s, social commentators were becoming concerned that [modern workers] were spending all their time at the office or in distant suburban lodgings and were finding it hard to meet suitable partners ... Some respectable journalists, philanthropists and thinkers therefore began to argue that the small ad might be a solution to the difficulties of marriage and the anonymity of modern life. … By the First World War … a few enterprising journalists … realised that small ads need not serve only those who wanted to marry but also those who were simply looking for companionship (Cocks x).

Cocks goes on to explain how later in the twentieth century these types of ads also became a virtual gathering place for society’s outcasts. “For them, the personal column was a vital resource, a way of 11 “Provinciano de 28 trigueño, feo pero responsable y de buen corazón, quiere conocer a damita mayor de 18 años, de buenas cualidades morales y sincera en sus actos. Respuesta al seudónimo Incio Cruz, Correo Central Lima.” 12 “CRISOL GEREMIAS FLORES RAMOS de 16 años de edad, que viajó del distrito de Queropalca (Dpto. de Huánuco) por la vía: Oyón-Churín-Huacho Lima en viernes de la semana pasada, es buscado por su tío Féliz Ramos Falcón, quien se encuentra preocupado pues hasta el momento no tiene noticias del menor.”

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not only making friends and meeting lovers, but also forging a community …” (Cocks xi). I would like to underscore this broader use of the personal ads column as a space for community building, and posit that something similar happened in “Correo” and “Hoy.” On the one hand, the circumstances described in these columns appear to project an image of rootlessness and loneliness as characteristic of the experience of the popular sectors in the city. Take, for example, the case of Cesaria Valenzuela Gamboa, who is searching for her nephew. She has not seen him in more than 6 years, but would like to hear from him because she “is elderly and … completely alone” (“Hoy” Aug. 9). Coupled with this dismal depiction of urban life, however, is the possibility of relying on the generosity and solidarity of others to overcome its challenges. Many social studies have shown that most immigrants brought their rural and familiar networks to the cities (Golte and Adams). “Hoy” and “Correo” seem to function as tools for supplementing and reconstructing these networks in a new urban setting, since its users (at once readers, writers, and protagonists of these stories) appear to be in communication through these columns with others just like them. Evidence of this “dialogue” is plentiful, for instance in the replies to the personal ads featured in a subsection of “Correo” titled “OJITO, OJITO” (front cover image), and the notices published in “Hoy” for people to collect the donations received in the newspaper’s office in response to their pleas: “LUCY VARGAYA, please come to the newspaper [office] immediately. Your request for help has been heard. A humanitarian person has left for you a hundred soles and the medicines will be delivered to the hospital” (“Hoy” July 6).13 Thus, it is possible to assert that the dialogue established in these sections between the ads and the elicited responses points towards the existence of a type of communication among popular readers of tabloids on the basis of a shared experience of life in the city. In this sense, these “human interest” columns can be understood as a public space where members of the popular sectors met to establish new interpersonal bonds (of love, of friendship), hoping to overcome the anonymity imposed by urban life. In the next section I will argue that Ramírez Ruiz perceives this cultural phenomenon unfolding in the tabloids and formally experiments with it in some of the poems in UPVR. Although there is no 13 “LUCY VARGAYA, venga inmediatamente a este diario. La nota solicitándole ayuda ha sido escuchada. Una persona humanitaria ha dejado para Ud., cien soles y las medicinas serán entregadas en el mismo hospital.”

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written account of Ramírez Ruiz having read or being interested in tabloids, my formal analysis will show evident similarities in format and content between the poems and the columns. Human Interest Poems “Media docena de inconvenientes por remediar” is the second of four sections that comprise UPVR.14 Although all four sections and the manifestos at the beginning and end of the volume constitute a cohesive unit, each section could also be read as an independent poetry book (Zevallos Aguilar, “Un par” 64). In the case of “Media docena,” as Roncalla has noted, there is even a change of style in the poems that underscores a relative autonomy from the preceding and following sections (21). Zevallos Aguilar, who is the critic that has paid more attention to this specific section of UPVR, argues that in its poems that Ramírez Ruiz “is attempting to construct a quotidian and popular history of the city of Lima” (“Un par” 68). In other words, he observes in this section an effort to devise an “urban chronicle” (“Notas” 49). Indeed, these poems could be described as micro fictions of the urban experience of popular sectors in Peru (more specifically, in Lima), where individuals serve as protagonists and their everyday—mostly tragic—situations are narrated. Nonetheless, it is my intention here to move beyond this characterization to posit that the poems register the lives of the underclass by means of an intense formal experimentation. I will approach “Media docena” as an independent section that proposes a specific formulation of the articulation between popular culture and the avant-garde. Urban popular culture acts as an element that disturbs poetry as a discursive genre, distorts it, and forces it to seek different poetic forms that are able to correspond to this new content. Readers need not open UPVR to find evidence of how tabloid ads and notices piqued Ramírez Ruiz’s interest. On the back cover of the poetry volume, the poet included his very own personal ad, along with a picture, that reads in part: “I was born in Chiclayo at 1341 Arica Avenue / 24 years ago. / Since 8 years ago I live and live in Lima. / I have published in the Magazines of the HORA ZERO Movement … / I have two unpublished books … / And I also have a wish: I want

14 The four sections of UPVR are: “Vía Férrea,” “Media docena de inconvenientes por remediar,” “Todos los detalles de una experiencia repetida durante días, meses y años” and “Un par de vueltas por la realidad.”

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to go all over / the world.”15 Even though for the most part the text reads like an excerpt of a traditional author’s biography, it is worth underscoring two pieces of information. On the one hand, the author clearly acknowledges his provincial origin (he arrived to Lima only 8 years ago). On the other hand, his wish expressed in the last line breaks the mold of the author’s bio, and establishes a connection with the pages of Última Hora: the poet’s desires and humanity shine through. A similar approach can be found in most of the poems contained in “Media docena,” where, as mentioned before, Ramírez Ruiz appropriates and experiments with the content and the format of “human interest” columns. The eight poems included in this section share a common theme: the hardships (“inconveniences”) faced by individuals from the popular sectors in Lima. Each poem centers around the story of a person going through a difficult time, and in need of establishing love, friendship or solidarity connections with others: an earthquake survivor, a missing man, a lonely woman. The focus on each individual’s story is reinforced by the inclusion of the names of the “victims” in the titles—printed in bold, all-caps typeface—much like the subtitles used by tabloids; for instance, “LE QUITARON LA CIUDAD A MARIO LUNA,” “IRMA GUTIÉRREZ,” “TERESA.” Similarly, most of the poems contain personal information—names, addresses, phone numbers—that almost compel the reader to call or visit: 810 GONZALEZ PRADA – SURQUILLO Phone number 284225 Isabel Tello Vargas I visit the address 810 González Prada – Surquillo and I find you or someone gives me your message Isabel. I call 284225 your neighbor’s phone number … [810 GONZALEZ PRADA – SURQUILLO / Teléfono 284225 / Isabel Tello Vargas / Voy a la casa 810 González Prada – Surquillo / y te encuentro o me dan razón de ti Isabel. / Llamo al 284225 teléfono de la vecina …] (UPVR 61)

Some of the poems appear to mimic the content, language and even phrasing of columns like “Hoy.” Such is the case with “Manuel Castillo,” in which verses and poetic language give way to a narrative form and a direct discourse reminiscent of the missing persons ads featured in the popular “human interest” column: 15 “Nací en Chiclayo en la Avenida Arica 1341 / hace 24 años. / Hace 8 vivo y vivo en Lima. / He publicado en las Revistas del / Movimiento HORA ZERO […] / Tengo inéditos dos libros […] / Y tengo además un deseo: quiero recorrer / el mundo.”

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Manuel Castillo and his 45 years, his gray suit, his hairstyle parted to the left, his oval face, his carolino mustache, his brown eyes his straight nose disappeared four days ago. Like every morning for the last six and a half years he left for work at the electric stove factory, and has not returned. He has not been seen by those who know him and here at 732 America Street they are crying. [Manuel Castillo y sus 45 años, su terno plomo, su peinado con / raya a la izquierda, su cara oval, su bigote carolino, sus ojos pardos / y su nariz recta ha desaparecido hace cuatro días. / Como todas las mañanas / desde hace seis años y medio salió a trabajar a la fábrica de cocinas eléctricas, y no ha vuelto. / No ha sido visto por quienes lo conocen / y aquí en la calle América 732 están llorando.] (UPVR 53)

The initial account of Manuel’s disappearance is succinct and unembellished. At first glance, the reader cannot identify in these verses any traces of added drama or indignation, nor a possible explanation for the disappearance. Rather, the “facts” take precedence, and it almost seems as if the poet followed the same template used by “Hoy” to report this type of cases: name, age, physical description, last known location, contact information. A similar approach is taken at the beginning of “Juana Cabrera”: Juana Cabrera has landed in the streets. Her house has been demolished while the sun shined. There was a judicial order and of course the Judge was present and he has verified the damage done by the wrecking crew. … she has lived there for many decades with her children husband and sister. She has worked all her life. She has a libreta electoral and only one pleasure El Satanás de Cuba records … [Juana Cabrera se ha quedado en la calle. / Su casa ha sido demolida mientras brillaba el sol. / Hubo orden judicial y por supuesto el Juez ha estado presente / y ha constatado los destrozos que han hecho los demoledores. / ... / ella ha vivido allí por décadas con hijos marido y hermana. / Ha trabajado toda su vida. Tiene libreta electoral y un solo gusto / los discos de El Satanás de Cuba ...] (UPVR 56)

While on this occasion the focus is an eviction, a similar fact-driven account of the situation opens the poem, followed by a description of the individual: name, married, with children, working-class, has

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a legal identification, likes boleros. Whereas in “Hoy” the quotidian aspect of these situations and the socioeconomic background of the victims remains implicit—to be reconstructed by the readers from the daily iteration of almost identical stories set in almost interchangeable urban settings—in the poems these features are highlighted through the inclusion of unexpected phrases. While the verses “and just before disappearing / he brought home 1/2 kilo of fresh meat, 2 cans of tuna / 4 eggs, 1 grouper and 3 chocolates for his kids” from “Manuel Castillo” may be interpreted as a play on the irrelevant details often included in missing persons ads, they also underscore and expand on the family’s economic situation and the significance of Manuel’s disappearance. The poetic voice does not want the readers to forget that this missing father and husband is a working-class man, and his wife and children will suffer from his loss. Similarly in the case of “Juana Cabrera,” the verses “She has worked all her life. She has a libreta electoral and only one pleasure / El Satanás de Cuba records” reaffirm her socioeconomic situation—even her provincial origin—while the final lines detail the consequences of her homelessness. Moreover, the reiteration of the obvious signaled by “por supuesto” (of course) in the third verse and “otra vez” (again) in the sixteenth underscore a shared understanding between the poetic speaker and the reader that these sorts of events were common occurrences to members of the popular sectors in Lima. As did the ads in “Hoy,” these poems end with what could be interpreted as veiled pleas: But he has not come back since four days ago (and this is a grave matter) How his return is expected only his wife and children can say. [Pero hace cuatro días que no vuelve (y esto es un asunto grave) / De la manera como se le espera sólo su mujer y sus hijos / dan razón.] (“Manuel Castillo” UPVR 53) And now Juana Cabrera is in the street … (And this is a grave matter) Juana Cabrera is going to sleep right in the street. She will be hungry and cold again. And surely she will lose weight. [Y ahora Juana Cabrera está en la calle … / (Y esto es un asunto grave) / Juana Cabrera va a dormir en plena calle. / Va a tener hambre y frío otra vez. / Y seguramente va a perder peso.] (“Juana Cabrera” UPVR 56)

However, they are not explicit, nor do they seem to be intended to elicit monetary donations or any type of tangible assistance. Rather,

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these verses seem to underscore the severity of the situations described, and perhaps, the ineffectiveness of the authorities. The reiteration of the length of time Manuel has been missing, and the detailing of the consequences of homelessness for Juana project an image that is meant to combat the desensitization produced by the long string of homogenous tragedies published in the tabloids week after week. Beyond emphasizing even further the gravity of the circumstances, the repetition in many poems of another unexpected phrase (“And this is a grave matter”) injects the poems with a denunciation of the living conditions of these individuals that was missing from the notices. In doing so, it illuminates Ramírez Ruiz’s political treatment of the human interest column. As I will expand on in the following section, by appropriating the content and the format of tabloid sections like “Hoy,” Ramírez Ruiz is not only looking to represent the emergent popular masses in Peru, but also to invite them to become the ideal audience of his poetry. Personal Ads Another way in which Ramírez Ruiz experiments with tabloids in “Media docena” is through an appropriation of the format of personal ads. Take, for example, the poem “Irma Gutiérrez,” which is a clear play on the ads that feature someone searching for an acquaintance (old friend or lover) lost in the vastness of the city: I don’t know what is going on in your life. Twice I have thought of calling you on the phone … I am going to call you at 233000 and if you are not there I will look for you. And I am going to find you so that no one can say that it is impossible to have friendship in this world Irma Gutiérrez [No sé qué será de tu vida. / Dos veces he querido llamarte por teléfono … / voy a llamarte al 233000 y si no estás te buscaré. / Y te voy a encontrar para que nadie diga / que es imposible / la amistad en este mundo Irma Gutiérrez.] (UPVR 55).

Or, an even more poignant example, the poem “Teresa”: Teresa woman thirty-eight years of age (alone among thousands) wants to have relations with any man anywhere

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[Teresa / mujer de treintiocho años / (sola entre millares) / quiere tener relaciones / con cualquier hombre / en cualquier lugar / y a la brevedad posible.] (UPVR 54)

Both poems take from personal ads the explicit desire to connect with another person, and in the case of “Irma Gutiérrez,” the inclusion of personal identifying information (full name, phone number). At first glance, it also seems as if Ramírez Ruiz reproduces in these verses the desperation and loneliness previously observed in “Correo.” For instance, in “Teresa,” that sense of desolation is emphasized through the repetition of “cualquier” (“any man, / any place”), as well as another unexpected phrase: “(alone among thousands).” Above all, “Teresa” conjures an image of Lima as an anonymous place where people become desperate for human contact. Likewise, the trope of the large city as an insurmountable obstacle to personal relationships is implicit in “Irma Gutiérrez.” Nonetheless, the poem closes with what can be interpreted as a rallying cry against this impossibility: “And I am going to find you so that no one can say / that it is impossible / to have friendship in this world Irma Gutiérrez.” In addition to the lack of and desperate need for human connection, Ramírez Ruiz also identifies in the personal ads a potential for communication and community building, and recreates it in the poems. Through an adoption and reworking of the personal ads column, poetry becomes a vehicle for this need to connect, to communicate with someone, somewhere, that is prevalent among the urban masses. Another poem that recreates this is included in the fourth section of UPVR, also called “Un par de vueltas por la realidad”: “THE FAVOR. – Please visit Elena Portocarrero, seamstress, / any day, afternoons or mornings at the / Worker’s Hospital / Bed 42 – Pavillion B. / She wants to talk and is alone. Thank you.” [EL FAVOR. – Visiten a Elena Portocarrero, costurera, / cualquier día, tarde o mañana en el / Hospital de los Obreros / Cama 42 – Pabellón B. / Quiere conversar y está sola. Gracias.] (UPVR 93). In a sense, the poetry book transforms into a contact agency for the popular sectors, underscoring the possibility of establishing connections among its popular readers based on a shared experience of precariousness and dispossession in the city. The potential for solidarity, the possibility of overcoming this urban experience, is what seems to be at play in these poems. Like the readers of the personal ads, the reader of these poems is invited to make use of poetry as an instrument for communication, and on the basis of this communication, to build friendship, love, sexual,

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even political bonds that transcend the written text into everyday life—networks of solidarity. Inevitably, this brings us to the question of the real readers of these poems. Even though the formal analysis developed so far cannot respond to this question from a sociological perspective, there are other clues beyond UPVR that shed light on Ramírez Ruiz and Hora Zero’s desire for their poetry to reach a popular audience. For instance, in consonance with their agitprop identity, Hora Zero would organize poetry recitals in Lima’s marginal zones, such as barriadas and pueblos jóvenes. As Vilanova has observed, their interest in public recitals evinces their belief that “poetry should no longer be a solitary, private activity, but a dialogue with the community” (8).16 I propose that this need to take poetry to the streets in search of an audience among the popular sectors is a key component in Hora Zero’s—and more specifically, in UPVR’s—avant-garde project. As it turns out, it is also the aspect of the poems in “Media docena” that most intensely displays their utopian impulse. Reading out loud his poems during a public recital in a barriada in Lima, Ramírez Ruiz could picture this audience, the audience of the tabloids and the audience of his poems merging. In this context, the names, addresses and phone numbers gain a new level of meaning, not only as formal recreations of an avant-garde aesthetic, but also as invitations to the readers to make use of the information, and thus, make use of poetry. Avant-garde and Revolution The imaginary of the revolution is essential for understanding the poems of “Media docena.” Even though it is not directly mentioned in the verses, references to the idea of revolution abound in practically all the manifestos included in UPVR. However, even in these programmatic documents, revolution is never defined explicitly, instead only hinted at by the use of keywords associated with the sixties: Marxism-Leninism, Cuban Revolution, anti-imperialism, engaged intellectuals, masses, and allusions to current catastrophes and luminous futures (Ramírez Ruiz and Pimentel 19–20). Thus, revolution emerges as the utopic political horizon that propels UPVR’s poetry. A closer examination of one of the manifestos, “Poesía Integral,” sheds light on the nature of said imaginary of revolution and on the role 16 This practice of public recitals in Lima’s poorest neighborhoods was later taken up by other avant-garde poetry groups. The paradigmatic example is Movimiento Kloaka in the 1980s.

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the category of social class plays in the formulation of a new type of poetry, poesía integral. The manifesto subscribes to the familiar premise that “revolutionary contents should be expressed in revolutionary forms” as the basis for the formulation of poesía integral (111). It is borne out of this premise, whereby poetry and revolution come together. While, as mentioned earlier, a concrete definition of the second term of this equation is never offered, the text is unequivocal as to what it entails: an allencompassing revolution that will transform all social structures and, more importantly, subjectivity. Poetry will lead this transformative process, since its main goal is to materialize “the idea of REVOLUTION” (116). However, poetry itself has also been transformed by virtue of its avant-garde impulse to come closer to “the life of the people” (115). In order to engage popular culture, poetry abandons lyrical forms and adopts a new language and content. In this new focus that inevitably alters poetry lies the fundamental link between poesía integral and Hora Zero’s understanding of revolution. Coincidentally, it is also the aspect of Hora Zero’s poetic project that most clearly illustrates Marxism’s influence. The “revolutionary subject,” the social actors that will carry out this revolution, will come from the underclass. Poetry will engage, represent, and incentivize their “shared experience at the class level” (111), on the basis of which revolution will be realized. Significantly, as we have seen in the poems of “Media docena”—and in general, all poems of UPVR—social class, and not ethnicity, are at the center of the constitution of a shared identity among the urban popular sectors. Aside from the importance of Marxism for comprehending the way in which avant-garde and revolution are articulated in UPVR, the impact of the political conditions in Peru at the time cannot be overlooked. As mentioned earlier, the Peruvian Armed Forces seized power in 1968 following a coup, and established a military regime with Gen. Juan Velasco Alvarado at the helm. The political statement conveyed by the Armed Forces’ decision to name the new government the “Peruvian Revolution” established, at the outset, the basis for a complex, contentious relationship with all national political and cultural actors, particularly those on the Left. Hora Zero was among these actors. Velasco’s rise to power confronted them with the difficult problem of how to (dis)engage their aesthetic practice with the State’s version of the revolution. Critics have observed that members of Hora Zero reacted to Velasco’s regime in a similar fashion as the rest of the Left intelligentsia in Peru: some supported it and worked within the governmental apparatus to

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advance its policies; others denounced the regime as anti-popular and repressive (Aguirre, “Nicomedes” 163; Vilanova). Despite this, in the manifesto “Palabras Urgentes,” Ramírez Ruiz and Pimentel demonstrate a certain degree of skepticism towards the “Peruvian Revolution,” as evidenced in the following quote: “we fully share the tenets of Marxism-Leninism [and] celebrate the Cuban Revolution. We are keeping a close eye on what is being done in Peru” (15). In the original, the last sentence is in bold, and its authors’ decision to underscore it could be interpreted as a way to signal a critical distance from (if not an explicit condemnation of) the Revolutionary Government. A possible reason for this distance might be found in the importance the previously analyzed notions of social class and all-encompassing revolution had for Hora Zero’s avant-garde aesthetic-political endeavor. The rhetoric used by Velasco’s administration presented the Peruvian Revolutionary Government as a nationalist revolution. This aspect of the official discourse reached its maximum expression in 1971, the 150th anniversary of the Peruvian Independence, when Velasco denounced the creation of a sovereign state in 1821 as a false liberation, exalted Tupac Amaru as the legitimate leader of the authentic national revolution, and proclaimed himself as Tupac Amaru’s heir. For instance, the image of this famous colonial revolutionary leader was prominently displayed in the posters publicizing the Agrarian Reform, clear evidence of how important it was to the regime to present its measures as a continuation of Tupac Amaru’s struggle (Cant 22). In this manner, the revolutionary government sought to define what was most “authentic,” most truly Peruvian (and revolutionary) on the basis of Andean indigenous culture. Ultimately, this indigenista imaginary served to defend a nationalist project capable of resisting the imperial advances of both capitalism and communism. Nonetheless, despite its claims, for many intellectuals in Peru, Velasco’s revolution amounted to nothing more than a ploy by the Armed Forces to stop an irrepressible social uprising from below (Cotler 126–27). Moreover, there was an inherent tension between Velasco’s multiclass nationalist revolution imposed by the military, and the advent of a revolution resulting from class struggle. Consequently, as Carlos Aguirre has observed, Velasco’s coup consolidated among large portions of the Peruvian Left a “political culture of confrontation” that was critical of the military regime in power (“Cultura” 185). Therein lies the contrast between UPVR’s conceptualization of revolution and Velasco’s nationalist, multiclass rhetoric. The poems in “Media docena” describe a popular experience that does not refer to an indigenista or nationalist imaginary. Instead, they convey an

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Figure 1. “Correo del corazón.” Última hora 2 January 1968. Periodicals archive, National Library of Peru.

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image of the popular experience that is unmistakably urban, marked by suffering and loneliness, but also influenced by the consumption of mass cultural forms like the tabloids. Moreover, on the basis of this urban popular experience, the poems propose a revolution that will destroy all existing structures and reconstruct them anew. In this manner, Velasco’s revolutionary imaginary radicalized UPVR’s political position. In the poems, the avant-garde operates to interrupt the nationalist rhetoric, to exhibit its fallacies. Significantly, Ramírez Ruiz does not associate the development of this class experience with any political party or with the institutionalized revolution, but rather its emergence depends on the existence of a cultural space where the marginal experience of the urban popular sectors is elaborated and socialized. This way, Ramírez Ruiz’s poetry highlights a mode of existence of the popular that was becoming dominant in Peru, but that was not yet being considered in the debate concerning revolution at the time. UPVR’s avant-garde poems sought to not only give voice to the popular masses, but also bring to them a poetry transformed by their experience, in a country that was transitioning from a rural to an urban nation. The avant-garde had to be reformulated in order to be localized in this specific circumstance. By means of its antagonistic style and utopic thrust, UPVR represents the Peruvian poetry collection that most radically expresses this transformative effort. Washington University in St. Louis

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