Writers Denounce Government Imposition on House of Poet Ramón López Velarde Dialogue

A coalition of writers and cultural collectives in Mexico City has declared a government-led dialogue about the future of the House of the Poet Ramón López Velarde "inadmissible." The group, organized as the Committee for the Defense of the House of the Poet, stated that a meeting scheduled by the Mexico City Secretariat of Culture is a "simulation" designed to impose the government's will.

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The positioning of the poetic community we represent has been public, and our demands and considerations are sufficiently known to the authorities. Furthermore, due to the non-binding nature of the meeting, Secretary Ana Francis López Bayghen is not obligated to make public commitments, which implies discretion in decisions and turns it into a simulation strategy.

The core of the dispute lies in the Secretariat of Culture's proposal to reconvert the historic space into a public cabaret. The defending collectives argue this directly contradicts the original expropriation decree for the property. This decree, they insist, established the House of the Poet as an exclusive space dedicated to poetry and the legacy of Ramón López Velarde, a status that has been maintained for over thirty years.

"As we have pointed out from the beginning, these issues should not be subject to discussion or the discretion of officials, as they are defined in the Decree of Expropriation of the property and in the institutional parameters that governed the House of the Poet for more than thirty years," the committee stated in a release. They view the proposed dialogue as an "authoritarian imposition" aimed at "denaturing" the space, asserting that it is neither a neighborhood center nor an interdisciplinary cultural center.

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As we have pointed out from the beginning, these issues should not be subject to discussion or the discretion of officials, as they are defined in the Decree of Expropriation of the property and in the institutional parameters that governed the House of the Poet for more than thirty years.

Conversely, the Secretariat of Culture issued its own statement, asserting that the upcoming meeting aims to define a "new stage" for the Casa Ramón López Velarde. The Secretariat claims that representatives from the eight defending collectives have been invited and that members of the press will be permitted to attend the session, which will also be broadcast live. The cultural groups, however, remain skeptical, viewing the non-binding nature of the meeting as a way for Secretary Ana Francis López Bayghen to retain discretionary decision-making power.

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Announcing that said mechanism is another form of authoritarian imposition. The House of the Poet is neither a neighborhood center, nor a cultural house, nor an interdisciplinary center, and any definition that violates its nature emanating from working groups is illegitimate and illegal. The artistic and cultural community has already categorically rejected that pretension.