At the Feria Internacional del Libro Santo Domingo 2026 (FILSD), literary critic Andrés Ulloa debuted his 490-page study examining the poetic evolution of Dominican writer José Mármol. Published by Búho, the work titled “José Mármol y la poética del pensar (el reencuentro de logos y el mito en la poesía dominicana)” was presented by writer Fernando Cabrera at the Auditorio del Museo de Historia Natural’s Sala de Letras.
Book Launch at FILSD 2026
The presentation drew a crowd of students, writers, and intellectuals to discuss Mármol’s literary footprint. The featured subject, José Mármol, is the designated honoree of the FILSD 2026 festival. Visual artist Ramón Peña designed the book’s cover illustration, which frames a text dedicated to exploring the intersection of philosophy, myth, language, and poetry within Mármol’s canon.
Mapping Mármol’s Thematic Universe
Ulloa’s analysis breaks down the wide-ranging topics present throughout Mármol’s decades-long output. According to Ulloa’s text, Mármol’s poetry tackles erotic love, the physical body, divinity, mortality, grief, memory, and ontological themes of being and non-being. The study also highlights local scenery, global cities, the Caribbean Sea, familial tributes, and existential philosophy as core pillars of the work.
Rather than treating sociohistorical subjects through direct journalistic reportage, Mármol employs a mitopoetic framework. In collections like “Casa de sombras,” the poet utilizes imagination and aesthetic construction without subordinating the verse to external political causes, according to the study.
Evolution from Early Youth to Maturity
Ulloa traces Mármol’s trajectory across three distinct creative periods. Early works like “El ojo del arúspice” (1984) and “Encuentros con las mismas otredades” avoided capitalization and used punctuation as verse boundaries to experiment with free verse. By the 1990s, Mármol shifted toward a classical solemnity in “Lengua de paraíso” and “Deus ex machina,” engaging directly with metaphysical questions. In his 21st-century output, including “Yo, la isla dividida” (2021), Mármol addresses postmodern liquidity, utilizing the Caribbean Sea as a central motif for memory and destiny.
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