In the early 1940s, Juan Sánchez Peláez lived in Chile where he was sent to study at the university by his family. During his four years in Chile, Sánchez Peláez came into contact with several young poets who identified themselves as the grupo Mandrágora. They modeled their work, in part, after the precepts of the French surrealists and published seven issues of the magazine Mandrágora between 1938 and 1943. The Mandrágora poets were also influenced by their immediate Latin American elders, including César Moro in Peru and Rosamel del Valle in Chile (Sánchez Peláez eventually edited a selection of Rosamel Del Valle's work in Caracas for Monte Ávila Editores in 1976). Sánchez Peláez published his first poems in Mandrágora in 1943. The poets associated with this group included Braulio Arenas, Enrique Gomez-Correa, and Teofilo Cid. In a recent text, published in 2001 in the literary supplement of El Universal, Sanchez Pelaez recalls his time spent in Chile:
Surca el mar...
Me miran a la cara
el sol y la luna
junto al recuerdo
de Valparaíso
deseos profundos, hermosos
de ebriedad juvenil
ondulan lejos
allá en lo lejano
surca el mar
un velero,
trae melodías ignotas
con el sonido ronco de los años,
en la bruma del crepúsculo
en tardes de otoño
llegan, ondulan sueños
de regreso a Valparaíso
y quédase soñando
el puerto insomne,
quédanse sus ojos
junto a mis ojos.
Juan Sánchez Peláez, Verbigracia, N° 30 Año IV
Caracas, sábado 28 de abril de 2001
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