From inner space to the public sphere in the poetry of Gloria Gervitz

Abstract

In this essay, I analyze the relationship between word and space in Migraciones, by Mexican poet Gloria Gervitz (1943-2022). In the different versions of the work, written between 1976 and 2020, the lyric voices go from intimacy (Migraciones, 1976-2004) to the polyphony of the marketplace, a sphere that Gervitz includes for the first time in the 2016 version of her work. I maintain that the scene of the tianguis transforms the main poetic speaker’s political position as a citizen, her diasporic condition as a migrant, while it shapes a nuanced understanding of the role of class and gender in the unfolding of history.