Resumen de The Real Political Arena: Juana Bignozzi’s Poetry
The continued and present contention regarding the narrative over what happened during Argentina’s 1976–1983 dictatorship leads to the understanding that the ongoing crisis lies in discourse. That is, it is opposing discourses that constitute a political arena, where conflicting versions of the past struggle in their interpretation, and thus, creation of reality. In the analysis of this battlefield we become aware that certain discourses seek to dominate memory and reality. The tensions created by the disputes over the articulation and, thus, domination of memory is a large part of the work of the Argentine poet Juana Bignozzi. I explore her work in La ley tu ley, a compilation comprised of five of her poetry collections written between 1967 and 2000. Specifically, I examine how it is a contestation of the univocal story and impositions of the official narrative. Poetry is revealed as a powerful tool in the shaping of discourse, perceptions, and ways of questioning and destabilizing the status quo. In order to delve in the importance of poetry in the destabilization of a prevalent story and so as to dimension the socio-cultural ideas of memory as related to military dictatorships, I put Martin Heiddeger, Alfredo Bosi and Carlos Bousoño’s “defense of poetry” into dialog with Foucault’s concepts of power dynamics, as well as with Elizabeth Jelin and Carina Perelli’s, among others, discussion on memory and dictatorships.
