Justo Alejo: the poem as an interface

Abstract

The analysis of this poem by Justo Alejo lead us to reflect on experimental poetry and art in general throughout the second half of the 20th century. Aesthetics and philosophical contributions show a drastric change in the way art and life itself are conceived but, above all, they provide a peculiar way to understand reality. The smallest detail of daily life is an excuse for the poet to exercise a harsh social criticism as well as a warning. The poet makes use of typical resources from both advertising and avant-garde literature in order to build a speech where the word and the image come together, feed each other and build together new horizons. In the aesthetic regime of art, montage is essential because it installs a new concept of temporality, whose basic element is simultaneity; it introduces an operation that breaks the logic based on the supremacy of text over image and establishes another type of relationship that defines as interface, where there is a constant link in a double community between the signs and us. Now that forty-two years have passed since the author died, this article would like to pay him a small tribute by highlighting the profound validity of his thinking and the modernity of his poetry.