Acousmatics

The number of mural poems in South America has mushroomed in the past twenty odd years. Quite a number of poems that embellish – some would say: litter – the continent, have been produced by the members of one particular literary movement. The utterances of Acción Poética have pervaded the urban and suburban areas to palliate the pains of everyday life with poetry. In some cases these pains are merely circumstantial, often, however, they can be aptly described as existential. We will confine ourselves to a set of existential mural poems, basically because attention is drawn to the " voces " (voices, poem-sentences) of the literary lone-wolf Antonio Porchia. The Argentine had – for some time, at least – cemented his reputation as a paradoxical poet, who managed to probe the unfathomable depths of being and condensate his contemplative wisdom in a few seemingly simple lines. Almost fifty years after his timely dead, his name seems to have sunk into the gloom, yet his verses remain a beacon of light. Acción Poética confirms this hypothesis, given that its members have picked up the voces without bothering to make mention of an author. In this contribution, we will try to explain why it not a coincidence that the movement have made extensive use of Porchia's oeuvre. We contend that the evocative power of this oeuvres hinges entirely on his writing technique – a technique coined " écriture acousmatique " (Devos & Van Egdom, 2014). By providing the specifics of this writing technique, we will not steer clear of the treacherous notions that are paramount in this conference, nor shall our discussion prevent us from going down the road of their inscription in a social context. In fact, our reference to the " écriture acousmatique " will change the perception of authorship and show glimpses of what, henceforth, is called the " poetic chronotope ". Gys-Walt van Egdom (PhD) is currently affiliated to the Vrije Universiteit Brussel (Dept. of Linguistics and Literary Studies), as a member of the Centre for Literature, Intermediality and Culture (CLIC) and the Centre for Literature in Translation (CLiV), as well as to the Zuyd University College for Applied Sciences (Dept. of Translation and Interpretating). His research interests include poetics, French and Hispanic literature, literary translation and translation competence.