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Alfonsina Storni (1892-1938): poet, professor, journalist and one of the most representative figures of the Latin American post-modernist movement. Born in Lugano (the Italian part of Switzerland) to Argentine parents, she grew up mostly in Rosario, Argentina, and moved to Buenos Aires at the age of 19. She published her first collection of poems, La Inquietud del Rosal in 1916, and by the 1920s she had become one of Argentina's most prominent poets, renowned for her amorous and often erotic verse. A recurring theme of her poetry is male oppression of women, for which she would later become an icon for the feminist movement throughout Latin America. In 1937, on learning that she had breast cancer, Storni drowned herself in the sea off Mar del Plata. Her often romanticized death was immortalized in the song "Alfonsina y el Mar", which has been recorded by Mercedes Sosa and Nana Mouskouri, among others.
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Come closer, poet; my soul is bare
It knows nothing of love – of earthly love,
Its love is something loftier and finer.
I will not take the kisses from your lips.
I will not drink from your crystal glass,
the glass is fragile and it loves immortality.
Come closer, poet with no trepidation...
offer up to me the grace of your hands,
In my desire you’ll find no foolish notions.
Would you like to go into the woods with a book,
a gentle book full of beauty?
We could read some pleasant passage.
I will infuse my voice with the religion of your soul,
religion of piety and of harmony
that is one with my sorrow in every way.
I will ask you to tell me of your loves
and some story which, now that years have passed,
is rich with the perfume of an old rose.
Nothing of myself will I give
for I have no perfumed flowers
that could thus be recounted.
The chest and an urn of my mad dreams
should not be opened, ending their lethargy
to show you their bitter contents.
I will do everything for your joy
and will be as sweet to you
as the perfume of the old rose.
The invitation is... sincere and noble.
Would you be my poet, good friend
and share your pain alone with me?
Translated by Martin Boyd |
