Jorge Mateo Cuesta Porte Petit (1903-1942) was a Mexican chemist, writer, essayist, and poet, and he also devoted himself to literary criticism; The latter did so well that he positioned himself as the father of this genre in his country. In the work of this author many traits of his personality were evidenced.
His work was characterized by being tragic and hopeless, where anxiety and the end of existence were its main themes. He also made use of clear and expressive language, which sometimes led the reader to a feeling of emptiness and hollowness..
Some of the most prominent titles of Cuesta were: Anthology of Modern Mexican Poetry, Triangles of Silences and Song to a Mineral God. Although the writer began as a chemist, his passion for letters led him to be one of the most prominent intellectuals, despite his short life.
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Jorge Mateo was born on September 23, 1903 in the city of Córdoba, in the state of Veracruz, into a traditional family. His father dedicated himself to agriculture, he was a man of severe character; while her mother was of French descent, a woman submissive to her husband's authority.
When he was barely one year old, Jorge Cuesta suffered a spectacular fall. That accident resulted in a surgical intervention, and aesthetically one of his eyes was affected. Since then he suffered from severe headaches.
Cuesta's academic training took place in his home state, after finishing high school he went to the capital of the country to start higher studies. He wanted to be a violinist and study at the National Conservatory of Music of Mexico, but then he decided on chemistry, a career he studied at the National Autonomous University of Mexico.
During his years as a university student he began to dedicate himself to letters, so he developed some verses and several essays. He also joined the group of young intellectuals called Los Contemporáneos, to spread culture and art throughout the Mexican territory..
Cuesta was also part of the magazine The Contemporaries together with writers such as: Gilberto Owen, Salvador Novo and Xavier Villaurrutia, to name a few. In 1927 he had the opportunity to publish some writings in the literary publication Ulises.
Within his copious literary agenda, the writer managed to make space for love. In 1927 he met the one who at that time was the wife of the painter Diego Rivera, the writer Guadalupe Marín. A short time later he traveled with her to Paris and they married, the marriage lasted just over four years.
Jorge Cuesta's stay in Europe helped him to expand his literary knowledge and establish good relationships. At that time he made friends with the intellectuals: Carlos Pellicer Cámara, Agustín Lazo, André Breton and Samuel Ramos.
He returned to his country in 1932, that meant the end of his married life, but at the same time the peak of his literary professional life. He resumed his writings in the publication The Contemporaries, also created the magazine Exam, which stood out for being critical of the national situation.
In the late 1930s, Cuesta decided to experiment with chemistry again. So he started working in a sugar and alcohol company, served as director of the laboratory, and came into direct contact with various substances and enzymes or organic molecules..
From then on, the writer and chemist began to have health problems, especially on a psychological level. According to some scholars of his life, the psychotic outbreaks he presented were the product of a sexuality not brought to light, according to the psychiatric report.
Jorge Cuesta spent the last years of his life suffering from paranoia and psychosis, for which he had to be confined in mental health centers on several occasions. He had tried his life by wounding himself in the genitals; previously had a similar crisis.
On August 13, 1942, when he was barely thirty-eight years old, he committed suicide by hanging himself with his own sheets while he was confined in a sanatorium in Tlalpan. His death shocked the world of literature in Mexico, and aroused curiosity and curiosity in many people.
Despite his short existence, Jorge Cuesta left an important legacy for the new generations. His high level of intellectuality and his curiosity led him to investigate different topics, such as politics, science and culture. For him it was necessary to lay the foundations for a Mexico with more interest in knowledge.
Although he could not see the majority of his work published, his nephew Víctor Cuesta has remained firm in making known many texts that the author left behind. In addition, many scholars have referred to him as one of the greatest Mexican writers, with an unusual expressiveness.
Jorge Cuesta's work was framed within the modernist movement. It was characterized by the use of expressive language, full of emotions and at the same time clear. In the author's texts it was common to observe the reflection of his personality, his feelings and life experience.
Cuesta was a pessimistic writer, hopeless, anguished and full of uncertainties, which made his literary work dark and enigmatic. With its most frequent themes (sadness, loneliness, melancholy and the end of life) it gave readers a feeling of lack of support, of lightness, of emptiness..
- Anthology of modern Mexican poetry (1927).
- The poetry of Paul Éluard (1929).
- Robert Desnos and overrealism (1930).
- Shipwreck of doubt.
- Triangles of silences.
- I sing to a mineral god (1942).
- Modern art (Posthumous edition, 1943).
- Poems and essays (Posthumous edition, 1964).
With this work Jorge Cuesta compiled some of the most outstanding and representative poems of Mexican authors of that time. Both the development and the publication of the book generated controversy and controversy because many writers were not included.
In this Anthology many of the intellectuals who belonged to the group of The Contemporaries, among them: Xavier Villaurrutia, Gilberto Owen and José Gorostiza. Modernism, elegance and creativity were present elements.
It is one of the best known poems by Jorge Cuesta, which was released two months after his death. The work was about a divine being who had the power to modify and do everything in his own way; a being who was in control of all the circumstances of life.
There were in the text some natural elements, which symbolized situations of human existence. For example, water was a reflection of being and the passing of time; loneliness and anguish were present as an essential characteristic of the author.
"I catch the sign of a hand, and I see
that there is a freedom in my desire;
they neither last nor rest;
the clouds of its object time alters
like water the imprisoned foam
of the wavy dough.
... A look in abandonment and alive,
if not a thoughtful certainty,
treasures a doubt;
his love expands in deserted passion
dreams in solitude and is awake
in mute consciousness.
... It is life there to be, so fixedly,
like the icy transparent height
fake it how much it goes up
up to the purple boundary that touches,
as if it were a dream of the rock,
the foam of the cloud ...
Language is flavor that delivers to the lip
the entrails open to a strange and wise taste:
wakes up in the throat;
his spirit still thick in the air sprouts
and in the liquid mass where it floats
feel the space and sing.
… That is the fruit that time owns;
in him her dread, her dream entails
and his work ends.
The taste that distills the darkness
is the sense itself, that others populate
and the future dominates.
“From another was the word -before mine-
which is the mirror of this shadow, and feels
its noise, to this silence, transparent,
its reality, to this fantasy.
Its substance is in my mouth, cold,
harsh, distant from the voice and absent,
inhabited by a different one,
the shape of an empty feeling.
... to find it in the noise that names it
and in the ear it makes its hole grow
deeper digging into the echo ".
"Soften the sun that touches its whiteness,
diminishes the shadow and confines it
and does not twist or break his figure
the calm gesture that tilts her.
Slides on full and mature skin
without wrinkling it, the fine smile
and models her soft and confident voice
the gentle gesture with which it is combined ... ".
"It was the happiness of no one that flees,
this fire, this ice, this sigh,
But what else about your retirement escape
that another aroma that is not restored?
A loss to another replaces
if it happens to which I was a new breath,
and if I find who I went when I look at myself
a present happiness is destroyed ... ".
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