The invoked oracle

Poetic work of Marcos Ricardo Barnatán

Fragments of the introduction to The invoked oracle, Visor, Madrid, 1984, which can be used as poetics:

Paul Valéry clearly distinguished between two types of literary works, those that are created following the dictates of an established taste and those that, on the contrary, tend to create their own audience. It is evident that the poems that follow fall decisively into the second section, which is undoubtedly the most risky, since there is the ever-looming danger of misunderstanding and lack of applause. [...]

I must confess, first of all, my faith in the magical power of language, the cornerstone of all work that tries to overcome that literality that caused and continues to cause so much damage to poetry. The word is not a mere succession of letters that respond to a limited combination subjected to common use. In each word there is an enigma, a chain towards the origin that is exemplified in the perplexity of the etymologies and another towards the future that those creators give us who throw them with courage towards new meanings. [...]

Both in Major Arcana [poems published in 1973] as well as in previous and subsequent books, countless biblical allusions plague my poems, when not cabalistic references linked to the teachings of the Jewish tradition or simply mythical or literary. They are the natural support of thought, never a vain aesthetic support - beauty will arise, if it arises, by direct emanation of language. [...]