ABSTRACT

The work of Jorge Pimentel, an experimental poet and member of Hora Zero, a group of poets in Peru who began publishing their work in the early 1970s, is sometimes open and accessible, sometimes markedly difficult. Pimentel not only embodies many contemporary debates around lyric poetry but also perpetuates the ancient quarrel between poetry and philosophy. This chapter examines some of the similarities between the ancient quarrel and contemporary debates about poetic language.