Maps for these territories don’t exist: Rubén Martín (Díaz) and the aesthetic topography of recent Spanish Poetry

Abstract

Building from the premise that the world of contemporary Spanish poetry is not a neutral discursive space open to all textual approaches, this study will trace the aesthetic strategies employed by two contemporary Spanish poets whose similar names—Rubén Martín Díaz (1980) and Rubén Martín (1980)—require us to look beyond the authors’ signatures and immerse ourselves in the textual approaches that characterize their poetic projects. Although the work of each poet establishes a compelling dialogue with many of the same concepts—the gaze, the natural world, the I, and language—its way of conceiving of these concepts and their complex interaction differs. In the case of each poet we will study ekphrastic texts alongside other texts, which, together, offer a vision of each textual approach’s attitude towards the fragmented world in which we live. This exploration will provide us with a clearer picture of the aesthetics of Contemporary Spanish Poetry and its relationship with past Spanish literary traditions. Although this study only focuses on the work of these two poets it also seeks to situate their work in the larger context of current Spanish poetry.