By Luis Felipe Rodriguez
Leobino Zavala Camarena was born in 1887 and passed away on December 27, 1974. He founded the Commercial and Midwifery High School in February 1930 and directed the school until his death. Don Leobino was my teacher of literature. He guided his students with some notes from Fulgencio Vargas. It was a delight to learn like this. It was our first contact with the works of select authors, and we learned rhyme, meter, and cadence.
In 1950 he published his book “Poems by Margarito Ledesma” Margarito Ledesma was his pseudonym, but there are people in Comonfort to this day who believe that Ledesma did exist, and some even think even that he continues to live. The writer Óscar Cortés Tapia talked about this work, telling the whole truth, but readers are still divided into those in Comonfort who accept Margarito, and those from San Miguel who knew him as the lawyer. According to Tapia, Ledesma’s poems were actually written in the 1940s. These are the same dates when he wrote his “Legends and Traditions of San Miguel,” but they do not coincide with the author’s date of 1972. For 22 years, I worked at XESQ Radio, and there I met Manuel Zavala, the author’s nephew. From him, I learned about another book written by Leobino Zavala, which most likely will never be seen publicly. The title was “Folly and Crap.” Each section of the book begins in a classical style, but then it descends into coarseness that makes the reader laugh. In the first edition, he attributes the creation of Don Margarito to the «work and grace of José F. Elizondo and Rafael Medina, authors of the zarzuela, “Chin-chun chan,»
According to Hiram Barrios, Leobino Zavala, was an «involuntary humorist,» using naiveté and ignorance to reach the grotesque or ridiculous. Zavala himself claims that he received the narratives through a «special conduit,» a file with drafts from a provincial barrister, accompanied by a letter in which the author requests that his poems be corrected and published. The document remained hidden for years until Zavala decided to review it. He considered it interesting enough to publish.
In the prologue, the reader is informed of the vicissitudes surrounding the supposed existence of the poet. The “Poems of Margarito Ledesma” appear in 1950, but the supposed encounter with the fictitious character occurred in 1911. Margarito is a man of the Revolution and of the years immediately following it. This involuntary humorist appears in a typical town full of rumors nd a complete cast of unique characters. There is Melitón Palomares, a defender and supporter of Margarito because he defends the helpless town a lot. Nacho, the apothecary, does his bit with some of the titles of Ledesma’s poems. Another townsman is charro Bardomiano, a man of great fiber. Don Tiodoro says Margarito is afraid of many people. His admiration for the female gender makes him dedicate part of his work to Jesusita Sánchez, Macrina, Tula, Manuelita, and all ungrateful women from all times. Zavala portrays and rescues these bucolic characters, whose language is a revelation of the backward and anachronistic people whose innocence is less and less common to us.
Margarito is the poet of the town who defends its roots. The book is filled with the important events of this blessed land where he was born. It is a land from which he was separated only out of necessity on two occasions. One was when he had to go to Celaya, “for court business,” and another was when he went to San Juan de los Lagos in response to «a command.»
“Here God has placed me,
I have lived here
and although it weighs on many,
I will die here.»
One feature of this character’s profile is his sincerity when he admits that Manuel M. Flores has influenced him; from him he has agreed to take some things and even some ideas and words. He has no qualms in admitting that «there is in this blessed land where I was born and where I first saw the light of another powerful high-flying poet whom you already know, and for that reason, I do not need to mention him; who instead of being my enemy, as was to be expected, has always been very easygoing with me and has even done me a favor, for which I am very grateful and for which I will live forever grateful, of reviewing and correcting some of my most varied compositions.”
He is an illiterate, anachronistic poet, and justifies the adjectives used by his creator: naive, humble, and sentimental. Of some delight to the reader are some of the footnotes and clarifications. On some occasions, Hermelindo Morales, Margarito’s great-nephew, appears. He sends Margarito poems kept by his mother, the poet’s sister. That brings the sum of his works to one hundred, each one with new themes.
It is certainly a mistake to believe that this poet existed, but one cannot ignore the fine construction of each poem and the variety of versifications. It cannot be the chance work of an uneducated writer as Zavala suggests in his prologue. Those who knew him, as well as those of us who were his students, heard many other poems on various topics from his own voice.
Margarito Ledesma was born out of leisure and perhaps a bit of chance. According to Hiram Barrios, he entertained his mother with his humble verses when she was sick in bed. Articles and interviews in the pages of “El Excelsior” have been preserved speaking of this. In one of them, Zavala told a journalist: «I had already begun to write some verses as a joke. I read them (to my mother), and she laughed so much that she continued the joke.» Humor requires an accomplice. Francisca Camarena, Zavala’s mother, was the first to begin the chain of complicity that made Ledesma a large-scale literary mischief. Those who read the poems, friends and acquaintances of the author, found ingenuity and encouraged him to publish them. Zavala tried in 1920 but had to wait thirty more years to see his poetry in print. Zavala paid posthumous tribute to his mother, who died in 1932. His name lives in the shadow of his character, the humble poet Margarito Ledesma, a “sui generis” case whose work has been described by Pacheco as the «only best seller of Mexican poetry.»
Margarito Ledesma, the fruit of Zavala’s poetic games, is the freedom of creation, the ingenuity of a completely voluntary humorist, and proof of an underappreciated talent. The reception he received with the publication of his” Poesías” prompted him to continue with the joke. In the next broadcast, he not only erased the literary antecedent of his character but also invented the supposed disappearance of the same. Hermelindo Morales, his great-nephew, said that «many years ago he left Chamacuero and has never returned.» Hermelindo never knew Margarito, but his grandmother told him that “One day, at dawn, he saddled his horse, took his suitcase and his scarf, quietly kissed his sister and his niece and, without any explanation, not even a word of parting, he mounted his horse and left the house.
«Well, I only aspire to the blessed reward
that when falling into nothingness,
all honest people can say:
‘Here lies the poet Margarito.’”
