by Fabio Doctorovich
The XX century in Argentina has been caracterized by the dominance of tyrannic governments that did not spare efforts to restrain the political and cultural freedom of their citizens. This fact had a large impact on the experimental practices of art in general and avant-garde poetry in particular, which were practically obliterated during the periods of violent repression.
During the 60s there was a period of relative freedom, and it was then that Edgardo Antonio Vigo introduced visual poetry in Argentina and started the magazine "Diagonal Cero". He developed the "poetry to and/or realize" -a type of concrete poetry in which the "reader" contributes to the making of the poem-, and together with others such as Mirta Dermisache and Armando Zarate (author of Otra Sintaxis published by Luna Bisonte Prods) founded the basis for postypographical poetry in Argentina.
In 1983 democracy was definitely (so far) restored and all the creative power repressed for almost 30 years gave birth (after 6 years of gestation) to Paralengua -Paratongue, Fortongue, the parallel tongue, the language-but-not-written-language, the alternative outsider-. Organized by a sound poet (Carlos Estevez), a visual poet (Roberto Cignoni) and myself, the movement has grown exponentially in a short period of time, embracing a large number of poets. Due to its postypographical nature, Paralengua's preferred forms of expression are not magazines or books but poetry shows and performances. The presence of an audience at the moment that the poem is performed not only improves the poet-'reader' rapport but also makes feasible the participation of the public in the making of the poem (a fact clearly related to Vigo's "poetry to and/or realize"). In some cases, participants are invited to "confess" a poem to a priest-poet concealed on the stage behind a black curtain (Jorge Santiago Perednik); in others, fragments of a poem are distributed among the audience (which is separated into several groups) to be read, therefore producing a sound poem (F.D.). Sometimes a type of "poetic interview" is held in which the public may ask the poets any kind of question that are answered in the form of improvised poems, reminding of the "payadas" held by gauchos (Roberto Cignoni). Other areas that had been explored include the interfaces poetry-theater (Emeterio Cerro, Myrna Le-Coeur), and poetry-sound (Carlos Estevez).
Nevertheless, this eclosion of a variety of postypographical poetic works has made difficult to construct solid theoretical basis. It may be envisioned that in following years the movement will be cribbed as some theoretical light starts to arise. By the moment, and as Carlos Estevez has said, Paralengua "has a proteinic and tentacular nature which doesn't lack festivity, intellectualism, sensitivity and, most important, a passion that possesses all the dimensions of language."