In tribute, symbolic meeting of the poet Jaime Sabines with Congress

Halfway between the fabric seller in Tuxtla Gutiérrez and the federal deputy in San Lázaro, Jaime Sabines (1926-1999) built a poetry that speaks from the flesh, the street and confusion.

“I have not made a living from intellectual work, I always swore that I would never write articles or reviews,” he once stated. “I do not boast of being the greatest poet in Mexico, but I am one of the few who have worked seriously their entire lives, in physical jobs.”

Yesterday, in the Legislative Hall of the San Lázaro Palace, dozens of colleagues and admirers gathered to celebrate the centenary of his birth – which will be celebrated this Wednesday the 25th – with the Meeting of Poets: 100 years of Jaime Sabines, the poet of Congress.

Organized by the Chamber of Deputies in collaboration with the Cervantes Institute (of Spain), the State Council for Culture and the Arts of Chiapas and other institutions, the tribute consisted of three different moments.

The first – after the welcome by Aliza Chelminsky, Secretary of Administrative and Financial Services of the Chamber of Deputies – was a conversation between young Mexican poets: Olivia Oropeza from Jalisco, Maricela Guerrero from Chilanga, Rogelio Guedea from Colima and José Natarén from Chiapas, for whom Sabines’ destiny “was poetry, and his poems will be remembered in 500 years.”

At the conclusion, a master panel took place, which brought together three of the greatest voices of contemporary Mexican poetry: Marco Antonio Campos, Efraín Bartolomé and Silvia Tomasa Rivera, in addition to the Spanish vate Luis García Montero, director of the Cervantes Institute. The meeting concluded with a solemn act of tribute to the author of The loving ones and a conference by the poet Mario Bojórquez.

This tribute symbolically marked Sabines’ reunion with Congress, where he was a federal deputy in two terms: 1976 and 1988, without ceasing to be, as he maintained, “a man who was born a poet.”

Creator and politician

Pilar Jiménez Trejo, author of Jaime Sabines: Notes for a biographyrecalled the creator and politician who, in the midst of the legislative fight after the controversial victory of Carlos Salinas de Gortari in 1988, entertained himself by writing down the insults that the opposition hurled against the PRI: “Deaf, blind, cynics, alchemists, dinosaurs, dogs, rats…”

Sabines “was not a political poet nor a political poet,” said the writer and journalist. “He was a man who was born a poet. The best recognition we can give him will be to read and reread him.”

Rogelio Guedea summarized the feeling of countless readers when they encounter Sabin’s work for the first time and become hooked, recognizing him as an author who speaks “in a simple and human way” about death, love, loneliness: “Sabines identified with that class of poets who trip over a stone and say ‘fucking stone’.”

A network phenomenon

Olivia Oropeza positioned him as an initiatory poet and a “phenomenon” of digital media, not only because he has been the gateway to poetry for several generations, but because the videos of his readings on digital platforms receive massive visits, such as the one he did in 1996 at the Palace of Fine Arts, which according to her exceeds 500 million interactions on YouTube.

Maricela Guerrero underlined the sacred and earthly dimension of the author, and, when reading the verses Cuba 65linked his poetry to current events, specifically to the pressing situation in the island nation.