These Latina Poets Have Proven Through their Art That Words Are Magical
Poetry, in its purest form, is an art that graces us with a rich tapestry woven with the vibrant colors of culture, history, and emotion. Latin America, with its diverse landscape, contexts, and identities, has seen the rise of women who chose poetry as a medium to speak of love and longing, of injustice and inequality, painting a vivid portrait of the human experience in a land marked by both beauty and strife.
In this blog post, I want to share with you the work of five remarkable Latina poets whose words resonate with passion, struggle, and the beauty of the Latin American experience.
Gabriela Mistral (1889-1957)
Dame la Mano
Dame la mano y danzaremos
dame la mano y me amarƔs.
Como una sola flor seremos,
como una flor, y nada mĆ”sā¦
El mismo verso cantaremos,
al mismo paso bailarƔs.
Como una espiga ondularemos,
como una espiga, y nada mƔs.
Te llamas Rosa y yo Esperanza;
pero tu nombre olvidarƔs,
porque seremos una danza
en la colina y nada mĆ”s…
Gabriela Mistral was born in Chile and was the first Latin American woman to receive the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1945. Her real name is Lucila de MarĆa del Perpetuo Socorro Godoy Alcayaga, but she ended up going by her pseudonym Gabriela Mistral, used for the first time in the poem Del Pasado published in the newspaper El Coquimbo in 1908.
I am not only impressed by her work but also by her journey. At the age of 15, Gabriela stopped formally attending school to care for her sick mother. She then began working as a teacher’s assistant and publishing her first writings in a local and radical newspaper, El Coquimbo.
With the losses of her mom, her lover Romeo Ureta, and a close nephew, Gabrielas’s heartbreak led her into some of her best work: Sonetos de la Muerte.
Juana Bignozzi (1937-2015)
El hombre que me compra flores
el hombre que me compra flores
se las guarda en el bolsillo despuƩs de dedicƔrmelas
recomienda serenidad ante mis sĆntomas y mis pĆ©rdidas,
cuando se ha asegurado de que recuerdo la hora del regreso
me pide que deje de buscar mi maleta
vuelva a calzarme mis incĆ³modos zapatos
y busquemos un buen lugar para comer
Juana was the daughter of anarchist parents, who gave her a remarkable formation. For example, in 1955, as a member of the Communist Party, she and Juan Gelman created the poetry collective El Pan Duro, with the aim of bringing poetry closer to the people from a political perspective.
Bignozzi is one of the representatives of the national poetry of the 1960s, more for biographical than aesthetic reasons. Her poems are characterized by the absence of punctuation marks and a preference for a natural-order intonation. She was not a poet of images or metaphors but dominated with a very direct style, dialogue, irony, sadness, and emptiness. Because of this austere, personal, and ironic work, Juana won the Municipal Poetry Prize 2000, the Konex Prize, and the Copper Rose Prize of the Argentine National Library in 2013.
Guadalupe “Pita” Amor (1928-2000)
Cansada
Cansada de esperarte
con mis brazos vacĆos de caricias,
con ansias de estrecharte
pensaba en las delicias
de esas noches, pasadas y ficticias
Considered one of the precursors of women’s liberation in Mexico, Guadalupe “Pita” Amor is a Mexican poet and writer born in 1928. Pita was famous for her talent, beauty, and for being a natural singer. It is said that her beauty inspired artists such as Diego Rivera, Cordelia Urueta, Martha Chapa, RaĆŗl Anguiano, Roberto Montenegro, and Juan Soriano, among others.
Her work was influenced by Sor Juana, Quevedo, Lope de Vega, Santa Teresa, San Juan de la Cruz, and Machado; she wrote about loneliness, the anguish of living, and fear. Pita’s poems were always written in the first person, dealing with life and her feminine experience.
Listen to some of her poems here.
Tilsa Otta (1982)
CĆ³mo me gustarĆa conservar
un poco
de inocencia
para que me la quitaras,
y un corazĆ³n dentro del pecho
para que lo rompieras.
Pero ya no hay nada
que puedas hacer por mĆ.
(de Mi niƱa veneno en el jardĆn de las baladas del recuerdo (2000-1996), Ćlbum del Universo Bakterial, 2004)
If I can say anything about Tilsa, it is that she is an all-around artist. Why? Well, she has published comics, poems, and short stories, as well as being a filmmaker and photographer. Tilsa’s work is known to be highly experimental, playful with humor, and references to pop culture that allow her to keep her work and creativity in permanent mutation and development. So far, Tilsa has published the poetry collectionsĀ Mi niƱa veneno en el jardĆn de las baladas del recuerdo (AUB, 2004) andĀ IndivisibleĀ (AUB, 2007), and the book of short storiesĀ Un ejemplar extraƱoĀ (Solar, 2012).
Tania GanitskyĀ (1986)
La noche se cerraba
en tu boca
y no habĆĀa manera
de liberarla.
Nunca temĆĀ tanto
por ti, por el silencio ā
en la punta
de tu lengua se apagaba
la Ćŗltima estrella.
Tania Ganitsky was born and lives in BogotĆ”, Colombia. She holds a PhD in Philosophy and Literature, is a professor in the Department of Literature at the Pontificia Universidad Javeriana and co-editor of the fanzine La trenza. She has published five collections of poems, including La suspensiĆ³n de los objetos flotantes (2021), Rara (2022) and Desastre lento (2023).
As you can see, these talented Latina poets serve as powerful examples of women who have utilized their voices to share their unique experiences. Through their impactful work, they have shown that their words transcend time and space, leaving a lasting impact on all generations.
These Latina poets stand as a testament to the resilience and creativity of Latinas, and their contributions to the literary world should not be overlooked. Whether you are a poetry enthusiast or simply curious about diverse voices, exploring the works of these five Latina poets is a journey worth embarking on. Happy reading!
You might also enjoy: Latina Authors That Need To Be On Your Bookcase
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