Behind the Remains of the Poem: Lyrical Exhaustion as an Interpretative Key in Mordiendo el frío, by Edwin Madrid

Abstract

The author construes Mordiendo el frío, a poem book by the Ecuadorian writer Edwin Madrid. He does so in the light of philosopher Alain Badiou’s assertion: that current poetry has only an a esthetic responsibility, and not philosophical anymore. Barreto claims that Madrid shows us the detachment between philosophy and modern poetry; he achieves this by using colloquial language, humor, and the joyful sexual flippancy of
Valerio, the poetic character of the book. According to Barreto, the poetic language, void of meaning, does not grasp the person’s experience: it turns out to be a mere report. This wariness about poetry and lyric language is a veiled criticism to the institutionalization of the genre, the author adds. Hence, this piece would show the lyric exhaustion of certain modern poetry. Barreto proposes that such exhaustion is embedded in the globalized conditions of today’s society, and that it plays a part in the death of experience of the modern person. Madrid closes with not lamenting the break up between philosophy and poetry; on the contrary, he strives to devise new sensitivities, marked by the everyday of post-modernism.