The Unfinished Song of Francisco Urondo When Poetry is Not Enough [Hardcover]

What Fontanet succeeds in doing in this monograph, is to show, with detailed analysis of the texts, how Urondos poetry developed along a trajectory in order to fulfill this belief. In a methodical way, Fontanet takes us through the stages of Francisco Urondos life and poetry, all the while showing us how each one is reflected in the other.Fontanet lays clear in his analyses how Urondo, in finding his own poetic voice, was also establishing an urgency to explore existential questions and, more concretely still, the identity of his then home, Buenos Aires as well as that of the nation. Urondos life is not without controversy.Fontanet skillfully manages to show us levels of complexity without taking up an overtly ideological position on the knotted question of Peronism. I believe this stance is well judged because it gets us closer to the truly enigmatic nature of both Urondo and his poetry. By approaching Urondo via his poetry, Fontanets study succeeds in revealing the ambiguity at the core of a person, whose chosen path of a comprometido, armed activist, would seem to suggest, on the contrary, a single-minded certainty.Scholarly and analytical, yet accessible and entertaining, Fontanets study is a welcome contribution to the field. It is of great value to researchers and students of Argentine and Latin American poetry but also to the general reader who wants to learn more about this important cultural and political activist and writer. For making the study so accessible, Hern?n Fontanet is to be highly praised because, in so doing, he perfectly matches the spirit of Urondos life and work.Among the strengths of Hern?n Fontanets book are the manner in which he presents the main events in Urondos life, tying them simultaneously to the evolution of his poetry and to world events; his lucid analysis of the trajectory of Urondos poetic production; and his judicious incorporation of a wealth of sources that fill in the picture of Urondos life and artistic productilÃs