Carlos ESTEVEZ (Argentina)
Carlos Estevez (1956, Rosario, Argentina) – poet, essay writer, sculptor, performer. In 1967 he moved to Buenos Aires where in 1981 he received a degree of professor in sculpture after graduating from the National School of Fine Arts. Since 1983 he has worked as a restorer of monuments for the Buenos Aires City Hall. He is the author of various sculpture projects and productions, one of the most significant he considers Jorge Luis Borges’ bronze bust installed in a park in Buenos Aires. Estevez started his creative literary activities in the late 1970s. In 1983 he published his first poetry book “Desespinado a poesia,” in which the tendencies towards short texts, secularization of the word, and search for formal dependancies in a verse were already quite obvious. These experiments were continued in the series of literary poetic productions, including such as: Oral (Buenos Aires: Botella al Mar Ed., 1985), Oral (MC-format, Buenos Aires: Botella al Mar Ed., 1986), Tempo (MC-fromat, Buenos Aires: Botella al Mar Ed., 1987), Transfonaciones (MC-format, Buenos Aires: El Caldero Ed., 1993). Looking through the poetic works represented in these editions it is easy to trace the logic of gradual refinement of the “standardised” text. Transition from the poet’s system of lexical co-ordinates (the book “Oral,” introduction of the authorized words writing with the elaboration of signs for marking the length of a sound, and intonation – implementation on the audio cassette “Oral”) is performed through the phonetic complication (the audio cassette “Tempo”: introduction of vocal collaborations, simultaneous reading, sounds of the environment, etc.) to the complex sound productions based on the study of trans-phonetics. Estevez is the author of a number of essays dedicated to the issues of theory and practice of phonetic experiment in the Argentinian poetry, among them are the following ones: Paralengua. La Ohtra Poesia (Revista XUL #10, Buenos Aires, 1993), Arerca del experimentalismo oral en la poesia Argentina (1999). Jointly with F. Doctorovich and R. Cignoni he arranged a number of annual meetings “Paralengua” where the poetic trends, emerged in the last decades, were represented. Estevez was also a co-organiser of the “1st Encounter of Experimental Poetry in Argentina” (Buenos Aires, 1996). His works are published in various international poetry editions, magazines and anthologies, including such as: The XUL Reader (Anthology of Argentine poetry 1980-96, New York: Roof Books, 1997), Dimensao (Rivista International de Poesia, #26, Uberaba: Dimensao, 1997), Poesia sonora hoje (Uma Anthologia Internacional, Sao Paulo: EPE-LLS e Fapesp, 1998). He is the author and producer (in collaboration with F. Doctorovich, R. Cignoni) of the video film “Paralengua” (1991), his poetry productions have been transformed into Liliana Lago’s dancing-plastic program, and his poems “Abandoneon,” “Afi nga ni zuam” have been realised in the TV program “Artesano de fin de siglo” (TN Channel, Buenos Aires, 1995). Carlos Estevez lives and works in Buenos Aires (Argentina).
