The first poem that impressed me by Ángel Ortuño (it is in
Aleta dorsal
, 2003) is called
Contra Terpsícore.
It is a diatribe in prose at the expense of the rabble who, like me, love to dance. The last sentence is lapidary: "I dream that Genghis Khan descends on them like a redeeming wave of mutilation." There he is, in full powers, the barbarian poet that he was: his diction brought up in the Pixies and Rubén Darío, his anger tempered by an exquisite humor, his gaze fixed on the interlocutor and on the mimetic detail, as if he were the child who appears on those T-shirts they sell at any town fair: "I'm thinking how to break your mother."
The patterned T-shirts were a primary feature of his outfit, the concretist counterpart to his epigrammatic passion. The most popular of them says CA / NA / LLA with letters that span the entire torso. The one that I remember best from before (not counting those of Motörhead, or that of American Horror Story, or that of Catzilla destroying the city) was a very red Devil accompanied by the familiar inscription: “God is busy. Can I help you? "
Angel never gave the air of an angel.
On the contrary, he tried - in his voice and his
look
, in his tattoos, and of course in his poems - to underline what is wrong, to highlight the overtones of anti-system cruelty, the abject condition of the misfit: a stoic desire to set fire to everything. and in the end not doing it because it is not worth it.
That attitude, exhibited by a genuinely sweet, funny and attentive, intelligent and lucid man, seems to me essential in this age plagued by superficial, bland, and obtuse goodness.
It is the gesture of his that I will miss the most.
Ángel Ortuño Courtesy
In 2018, when he gave me his book
Your childish behavior is already starting to tire us
, he said, excusing himself from the title: "It's a phrase that they spat at me the other day at work, but it has such a good rhythm that I couldn't waste it." As is the case in Mexico, Ángel Ortuño's vocation not to take anything seriously caused many times that confused and envious people overlook the exceptional poet that he was. Worse for them. Like Gerardo Deniz, with whose intellectual genealogy he is related, Ángel possessed a sharp ear for the accentual disposition and an unusual naturalness for the encirclements. He was a virtuoso of rare and memorable shots: “If you saw a van engulfed in flames / would you think the people on board howling had done something / bad?”; “They have an unnatural anus, that is, a catheter / artificial on one side of the abdomen”; “The brain waves of a corpse / are not a rational explanation”;"Lucifer will arrive like the prophecy of the sleepwalker: // it is the chair / that comes out of itself a hundred times / when it stays still." He was a persistent taster of rhetoric and knew by heart his Modernism and his Golden Age, although he did not always talk about it (once we spent hours embroidering the subject on the sidewalk and I almost missed the bus): only if you asked. He preferred to talk heavy rock, blurt out two or three anti-labor laconicisms, or launch slightly inordinate praise at his interlocutors.although he didn't always talk about it (once we spent hours embroidering the issue on the sidewalk and I almost missed the bus): only if you asked. He preferred to talk heavy rock, blurt out two or three anti-labor laconicisms, or launch slightly inordinate praise at his interlocutors.although he didn't always talk about it (once we spent hours embroidering the issue on the sidewalk and I almost missed the bus): only if you asked. He preferred to talk heavy rock, blurt out two or three anti-labor laconicisms, or launch slightly inordinate praise at his interlocutors.
I never hesitated to call him, in private and in public, "My favorite Mexican poet." He will always be the one I admire the most of my generation. Not only because of his verses: it is above all his attitude towards poetry, that oxymoron, the devout disdain, the profuse fading of the Orphic, what I love and envy about him.
In May 2017 we did together, in the company of Ismael Velázquez Juárez, Eduardo Padilla and DJ Bolo, a memorable poetry reading in Guadalajara. Delighted, we decided to repeat it in Saltillo the following summer. That day Babasónicos played in the main square, two scarce streets from the cultural center where we read, and by some Providencia (embodied from a distance in the poet Fabián Casas), that night we all ended up together — Argentine rock band and more Mexican poets. an entourage of fans— partying in my apartment. While most of us were
around the members of Babasónicos, Ismael and Ángel and Eduardo
in a
group
plan
, they concentrated on two more edifying tasks: monopolizing the
playlist
and confiscate all available champagne (Adrián Dargelos had brought a box). At some point, I caught a glimpse of Ángel Ortuño's profile in the shadows. He drank his champagne alone from a disposable glass, in a corner, distant and smiling like a madman, with the absorbed and a little lost look that many of his friends got to see him - both in his sober periods and in those of euphoria. in meetings. He looked like the only
true
rockstar
for miles around.
We hardly ever argued, except a couple of times on Facebook, where it had become a phenomenon lately. One of those discussions happened a few days ago: it was a brief exchange about the idea of whether or not there is competition in what sociologists call "the literary field." I said yes: it is in the mirror neurons, it is a matter of cognitive poetics. Ángel replied (I am quoting him from memory): “Cognitive poetics deals with conceptual metaphors. Competition is not my conceptual metaphor. " How do you make war on a punk monk?
I am very saddened by the death of Ángel Ortuño (1969-2021), friend and interlocutor, master of satire, lightness and absurdity.
I regret that we have lost him in one of the most fertile moments of his creative process, when he was most connected with the writing of young people, when - guided by his deep love for his daughters - he was so committed to the social reality of the country.
My hug and my condolences to Flor, Lucía and Ximena;
Their loves.
All my love and solidarity for Toño, his brother.
I celebrate, as a reader, having shared a language and a country with a poet of such scope.
His legacy is just yet to be born.
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