The Body of Writing

Abstract

This article is an approach to the work Migraciones by Gloria
Gervitz (Mexico 1943) whose poetry seems to be a kind of
drifting that goes from a writing of the body to the body itself
of writing. The body is not only a recurring theme of this poetry
but also the very page that houses it is shaped like a body that
accompanies it in its inflections. The body demands to be treated
as a surface for inscription like a page and the latter, as a pregnant
object, becomes a kind of skin that offers itself simultaneously
to the eye and to the hand.
A diachronic review of the continuous reconfigurations that
this long poem has had in its history lets us see that they make an
incision not only the physiognomy of the poem but also its
signification. That is what it’s like because, whatever the
modality, writing implies a modification of the surface when an
incision is made. The action of the hand over the material support
converts into a signifying space what was up until then a simple
extension; and that place is the page. The poem, then, does not
deplete itself in what the words say since the place from where
they do it contributes to the meaning. The space, then, does not
limit itself to the role of material support because since it is
configured on the page it now constitutes a space that is not only
visible but also legible. It is at this moment of inscription that
the voice of the poem becomes a visible and figurative body.
We will proceed in a way similar to the Rorschach test that
consists of “finding” a figure in a simple ink stain on a piece of
paper (in our case, not with a psychological but with a purely
imaginary purpose in the sense of creating images) and at the
same time we will go on showing the close link in Gervitz’ poetry
between writing of the body and body of writing.