Magic Realism is a vast area of research on which a lot of work has been done. Nevertheless most of the works predominantly revolve around fiction. But there has been a reference that there are a few poets who use Magic Realism in their poems too. So I need a few references for citation to assert that there have been a few poets who have worked on Magic Realism
https://poets.org/poem/when-there-were-ghosts
When There Were Ghosts
Alberto Ríos
1952 –
On the Mexico side in the 1950s and 60s, There were movie houses everywhere
And for the longest time people could smoke As they pleased in the comfort of the theaters.
The smoke rose and the movie told itself On the screen and in the air both,
The projection caught a little In the wavering mist of the cigarettes.
In this way, every story was two stories And every character lived near its ghost.
Looking up we knew what would happen next Before it did, as if it the movie were dreaming
Itself, and we were part of it, part of the plot Itself, and not just the audience.
And in that dream the actors’ faces bent A little, hard to make out exactly in the smoke,
So that María Félix and Pedro Armendáriz Looked a little like my aunt and one of my uncles—
And so they were, and so were we all in the movies, Which is how I remember it: Popcorn in hand,
Smoke in the air, gum on the floor— Those Saturday nights, we ourselves
Were the story and the stuff and the stars. We ourselves were alive in the dance of the dream.
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About this Poem
"I’ve taught a course on magical realism since the seventies, and when people hear this they often talk immediately about ghosts. They want to talk about 'magical,' while I try to point to the noun 'realism.' But this made me think: Can ghosts and realism be reconciled outside a literary moment? Yes, I realized, drawing on my own life. Yes and easily." —Alberto Ríos
Born in 1952, Alberto Ríos is the inaugural state poet laureate of Arizona and the author of many poetry collections, including A Small Story about the Sky (Copper Canyon Press, 2015). In 1981, he received the Walt Whitman Award for his collection Whispering to Fool the Wind (Sheep Meadow Press, 1982). He served as a Chancellor of the Academy of American Poets from 2014 to 2020.
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Copyright © 2014 by Alberto Ríos. Used with permission of the author. This poem appeared in Poem-A-Day on March 3, 2014. Browse the Poem-A-Day archive.
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Srividya Jv
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