POETIC MINERALOGY: NEW STONES FOR “THE LOOSENED HAND” BY MARTÍN ADÁN. RECONSTRUCTION AND INTERPRETATION

Abstract

Poetic Mineralogy: New Stones for “The Loosened Hand” by Martín Adán. Reconstruction and Literary Interpretation is an innovative research project in the field of literature and digital humanities that aims to collect, interpret, and make available the verses of the long and neglected poem “La mano desasida” [The Loosened Hand], by the Peruvian poet Rafael de la Fuente Benavides, better known by his pseudonym Martín Adán (1908-1985), a fundamental, yet understudied figure in Latin American literature. “La mano desasida” was written in fragments around 1950 on a variety of unusual surfaces, including napkins, cigarette papers, and notebook pages that Adán himself never put together. Collecting the verses of “La mano desasida” has been a challenge for decades and many scholars allude to the poem as a mystery or labyrinth. Portions of the extensive fragments were published in the 1960s, with a more but not entirely complete version comprising some 200 pages produced in 1980. Many verses remain as yet unpublished, and scholars continue to piece the text together, seeking to determine if there is a proper order. The structure of the poem relies on interruption, division, and incompleteness, which reveals a deep understanding of how fragments express totality, an idea that was crucial during the German Romanticism. The poem, set in the ruins of Machu Picchu, recreates the ancient conversation between Man and Stone, a key concept in the Andean culture.