The “Mito” Group and Nadaism Colombian poetry under sectarian violence

Abstract

The following text is an enquiry on Colombian poetry and poets under the so called Sectarian Violence (Violencia Partidista) of the middle of the XX century, especially with regards to the “Mito” (Myth) group, which gravitated around the magazine of the same name that was founded by Jorge Gaitán Durán, and in relation to Nadaism (nadaísmo, “nothingism”), the movement founded by Gonzalo Arango in 1958. From the fifties on to the seventies, Colombian politics was dominated by the dictatorship of Gustavo Rojas Pinilla (1953-1957) and the National Front (Frente Nacional, 1958-1974). Under these conditions, both the Mito group and the Nadaists proposed- in different ways- a change in the attitude of the poet, and the intellectual, and of the practice of protest, desacralising conservative norms and manners.