The Poetics of Creole Talk: Toward an Aesthetic of Argentine Verbal Art

Creole talk in Argentina offers a key to creole poetics, defies noncreole authority, and provides a model for creole power strategies. Such talk, not exclusive to creole languages or to oral transmission, makes deliberate use of artifice to mask and reveal native (creole) truths. Whether playful, subversive, or combative, these Argentine examples share characteristics with the folk and literary artistic discourse of other creole cultures, suggesting a common aesthetic across geographical, economic, ethnic and other differences.