Juan Luis Martínez's Philosophical Poetics - Tapa dura

[This book] is the first study in English on the poetic production of Martinez. . . . Scott Weintraub succeeds with this study because it introduces the radical aesthetic of the poet in the English-speaking world and also carefully analyzes the key aspects of his literary output . . . We could say that the surprise text, text and unspeakable paradox text lines are synthesized and put into crisis the notion and coding of the poetry of Juan Luis Martinez. * A Contracorriente * The title of his study is completely appropriate, for Weintraub convincingly demonstrates how Martinez creates a philosophical poetics, which is also a poetic philosophy. Weintraub's book will be the starting point for all future research on this poet, for it brings together insightful commentary on the most recently published additions to his oeuvre, includes detailed attention to history of its publication, particulars of the poet's communication and dialogue with others, as well as a very extensive bibliography of works by or about this intriguing writer. Aside from its important contribution as a very comprehensive approach to Juan Luis Martinez as an artistic and intellectual figure, Weintraub's study offers multiple approaches to the Chilean's work.... Scott Weintraub's book uncovers many implicit dialogues of an author whose work readers may find ranges from tricky to impenetrable, by demonstrating how Martinez played hide and seek with a range of philosophical and aesthetic ideas from very diverse fields. The fact that this is the first such monograph to approach his work in English may expand his readership beyond those interested in innovative poetry and philosophy in Chile and open Juan Luis Martinez's inter-artistic poetic production to the kind of transnational readership implicit in the work itself. * Revista de Estudios Hispanicos *

Juan Luis Martinez's Philosophical Poetics is the first English-language monograph on this Chilean visual artist and poet (1942-1993). It has two principal aims: first, to introduce Martinez's poetry and radical aesthetics to English-speaking audiences, and second, to carefully analyze key aspects of his literary production. The readings undertaken in this book explore Martinez's intricate textual formalisms, the self-effacement that characterizes his poetry, and the tension between his local (Latin American, Chilean) aspect and the cosmopolitanism or transnationalism that insists on the global relevance of his work. Through his artistic engagement with a number of esoteric concepts-for example, his recuperation of pataphysical "logic" and Oulipian combinatorics, mathematical reasoning, Eastern thought, and the historical avant-gardes-Martinez creates a rigorous quasi-system of citation and erasure that is a philosophical poetics as well as a poetic philosophy. Juan Luis Martinez's Philosophical Poetics thus addresses all major publications by this groundbreaking Chilean artist and poet in order to read his difficult, experimental texts by focusing on the tension he creates between philosophical, political, literary, and scientific discourses.