Eduardo Lizalde

Eduardo Lizalde Chávez (14 July 1929 – 25 May 2022)^[1] was a Mexican poet, academic and administrator.^[2]

Lizalde was known as "El Tigre" for recurring themes in his work which stem from his childhood fondness for the stories of Salgari and Kipling. As he explains: "The tiger has been a fascinating figure from Biblical times until now, and I don't believe there has ever been a writer who has never made a reference to tigers. The tiger is an image of death, destruction and, also, of beauty..."^[3]

Career

Lizalde was born in

National Conservatory of Music.^[2]

In 1955, he became a member of the

Communist Party of Mexico, but was expelled at the beginning of the 1960s, together with José Revueltas

. He and Revueltas then founded the "Liga Leninista Espártaco", an alternative movement with which they both soon became disenchanted.

Shortly thereafter Lizalde,

Enrique González Rojo, and Marco Antonio Montes de Oca started Poeticísmo, a literary movement which quickly fizzled out. Lizalde himself severely criticized the movement in his book Autobiografía de un Fracaso ("Autobiography of a Failure"), in which he said the movement's goal to create poetry with "originality, clarity and complexity" was so vague that, in reality, "there was nothing". In fact, despite his continuing efforts to promote Mexican literature, Lizalde has expressed dissatisfaction with his own work and poetry in general, of which he has frequently said "no sirve para nada" (it's useless).^{[citation needed}

]

He has served as the director of the

José Vasconcelos Library^[2] and co-hosted Contrapunto, a weekday radio program from the Instituto Mexicano de la Radio (IMER).^[4]