Ricardo Zelarian, “The obsession of space” (The Dilletant)

Kind of space. If everything is mystery, everything is poetry. Escape or introspection? Some writers explore distant horizons, others prefer a dive into lives other than their own or in their own interior space. Herald of Argentine contemporary poetry, Ricardo Zelarayán made his choice … intended for medicine, he abandons it, becomes a corrector, translator, journalist. Death in 2010, this collaborator of the avant-garde journal Literal Dark in oblivion. A new generation of Argentinian poets rediscovers it. We keep quoting it. Thus, lately, in a film sequence The criminals From Rodrigo Moreno where his verses sound. In 1972, Zelarayán was 50 years old and he lost everything – love, work, home. Impossible to return to the fold in Paraná, in the province of between Ríos, of which he had always felt exiled to Buenos Aires. Nowhere to go. Finally, we lend him tiny accommodation. The compressed being is released through writing. Scansion of a beating heart among the desert of men as at the rhythm of a train spinning in the night, making an images and thoughts, between rocky language and surreal flashes … The obsession with spacehis first collection of poems is written in less than a month. “La Grande Saline”, a central poem of the book, has become cult. So, yes, everything is mystery, which is only a word: “You have to crush the word mystery / as you crush a chip, / between the two inches. »»