This is a book of poems which attempts a synthesis of the avant-garde, the city, and the workers’ revolution. The idea that prompted Manuel Maples Arce’s composition of the poems in Urbe was to “provide an aesthetic intention to the Revolution.” Afterwards, such an idea was picked up by Jean Charlot in order to develop a modality of synthetic graphics associated with monumentality.  

The idea of a type of estridentistaart that would take over the manipulation of enlarged dimensions, such as the public mural art, is implicit in the xylographies that Jean Charlot (1897-1979) produced for this book by Maples Arce (1998-1981), as well as in the poems by the author himself. Wood engravings by Jean Charlot: cover and one of the inside pages.Estridentismo is an early Mexican avant-garde movement that originated in 1921, parallel to the muralist movement. Its creator, and for some time only member, was Manuel Maples Arce (1898-1981), a poet from Veracruz who rebelled against modernist poets and academic painting. Related to Dadaism, Futurism, Ultraism, and Creationism—in both its European and Latin American manifestations—Estridentismo was a movement centered on agitprop strategies, and unrestricted allegiance to mechanical aesthetics. The followers of Estridentismo inspired a new urban sensory perception, in which experiences accumulate in simultaneity, at the rhythm and speed of modern life. The very name of the movement refers to urban noise as well as to their wish to be heard because of their embedded transgressions and excesses.As a movement by artists devoted to literature, music, painting, engraving, photography, and sculpture, estridentismo had its center of operations at El Café de Nadie in Mexico City. Later on, it relocated to the city of Xalapa, Veracruz, where its members became involved in the educational revolution. It counted on several information disseminating sources, such as the magazines: Ser, Irradiador, and Horizonte.