The Mystery of God, the Poetry of Javier Sicilia

Abstract

Even though Mexico has produced a prolific amount of religious poetry, for a long time critics did not pay sufficient attention to it. Just recently, critics started to appreciate the poets with religious concerns that published in the last decades. Examples of these poets are Concha Urquiza, Manuel Ponce, Enriqueta Ochoa, Elsa Cross, Sergio Mondragón and Javier Sicilia. This is why our interest to study Javier Sicilia’s work. Sicilia is a poet, novelist and essayist. He was born in Mexico City in 1956. He started to publish in the seventies and his poetry shows an influence from the Spanish Golden Age and Biblical passages. Sicilia has been dabbling in literary creation for more than thirty years. He has written poetry, screenplays, novel, essay and articles in newspapers. In 1993, he received the José Fuentes Mares award for his novel, El Bautista and in 2009, his work, Tríptico en el desierto received the Aguascaliente National Prize in Poetry 2009. This is one of the most important recognitions granted to Mexican poets. Although Sicilia belongs to a generation who was born in the fifties, in his book of poems Triptico en el desierto, published in 2009, we find echoes of T.S. Elios and Rilke’s verses. We can also find references to the Bible and La divina comedia by Dante. Most of Sicilia’s literary works exhibit an influence from the Spanish Golden Age mainly from the works of San Juan de la Cruz and Fray Luis de Leon. As most of the poets with religious tendencies, he writes against the dictates of current fashion. This is why, although the rest of his generation utilizes free verse, he prefers traditional verse.