La piedra sublime: La mano desasida de Martín Adán

This essay studies Martín Adán’s poem “La mano desasida” from the category of the sublime. The poetic voice addresses Machu Picchu as a fictitious interlocutor capable of activating diverse reactions. The images arise from a desire to understand the relationship between the material and the transcendent, between finitude and the metaphysical, and are positioned as a response to a type of purely instrumental rationality that seeks to eliminate the indeterminate and the inexplicable from life. The poetic voice, however, does not stagnate in a purely contemplative dimension and also seeks to articulate a critique and a demand. The poetry shudders at the magnitude and beauty of Machu Picchu, but at the same time, it does not fail to mark a state of social alienation due to modern commodification. From there, the sublime emerges as a figure not only aesthetic but also political because it makes visible the shortcomings of life. The Inca citadel deconstructs everything known and opens the imagination and thought towards the search for an absolute, but also towards a radical critique of the present.