Alfonsina Storni

Alfonsina Storni (29 May 1892 – 25 October 1938) was an Argentinian poet, essayist, and playwright. She is known for her contributions to Latin American literature and her early feminism. She killed herself by walking into the sea. Storni's works often explored themes of feminism, femininity, eroticism, and love.

Quotes

• I am that woman who lives with eyes open
  • Yo soy esa mujer que vive alerta
    • From Tú, que nunca serás

• Tiemblo, como las luces
  Tiemblo sobre las aguas.
  Tiemblo como en los ojos
  Suelen temblar las lágrimas.
  Tiemblo como en las carnes
  Sabe temblar el alma.
  • I tremble as light
    trembles on water.
    I tremble as in eyes
    tears tremble.
    I tremble as in flesh
    the soul knows to tremble.
    • fragment from the poem “Viaje,” El Dulce Daño (1918), translated from the Spanish by Malia Márquez

• la luna me ha dicho
  Las tres viejas palabras:
  “Muerte, amor y misterio ...”
  • The moon has told me
    the three ancient words:
    “Death, love, and mystery ...”
    • fragment from the poem “Viaje,”

• Sí, yo me muevo, vivo, me equivoco;
  Agua que corre y se entremezcla, siento
  El vértigo feroz del movimiento:
  Huelo las selvas, tierra nueva toco.
  Sí, yo me muevo, voy buscando acaso
  Soles, auroras, tempestad y olvido.
  ¿Qué haces allí misérrimo y pulido?
  Eres la piedra a cuyo lado paso.
  • Yes, I move, I live, I wander astray—
    Water running, intermingling, over the sands.
    I know the passionate pleasure of motion;
    I taste the forests; I touch strange lands.
    Yes, I move—perhaps I am seeking
    Storms, suns, dawns, a place to hide.
    What are you doing here, pale and polished—
    You, the stone in the path of the tide?
    • "¿Y Tu?" translated from the Spanish by Muna Lee (writer)

• Unas veces mis versos han nacido
  Del ideal.
  Otras del corazón y de la angustia
  En tempestad.
  Otras de algunas sed como divina
  Que pide hablar.
  Pero otras muchas, hombres, los ha escrito
  Mi vanidad.
  Soy, como todos, una pobre mezcla
  De lo divino al fin y lo bestial.
  • Occasionally my poetry is born
    of the ideal.
    Other times of the heart, and in a tempest
    of distress.
    Still others of a godlike thirst that begs
    to speak.
    But often, gentlemen, it’s authored by
    my shallowness.
    I am, like everything, a lowly mix
    of the divine, the bestial.
    • "Así es" translated from the Spanish by Nicholas Friedman

Quotes about

• Alfonsina Storni, considered to be a subversive, a radical for Argentina's bourgeois...we see that Storni's poems both in image and meaning are more traditional than Gabriela Mistral's
  • Marjorie Agosín Introduction to These Are Not Sweet Girls: Poetry by Latin American Women (2000), translated from Spanish by Monica Bruno

• Just a few years ago, one could easily identify the women in all of Latin America who stood out in literature. Names like Gabriela Mistral, Alfonsina Storni, Juana de Ibarború, Delmira Agustini, Claudia Lars, not to mention the greatest of them all, Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz...
  • Claribel Alegría speech (2006) Translation from the Spanish by David Draper Clark

• Alfonsina Storni of Argentina...wrote scathing feminist poems.
  • Angel Flores and Kate Flores, Introduction to The Defiant Muse: Hispanic Feminist Poems (1986)

• At the turn of the century, a legendary group of women poets emerged, including Delmira Agustini, Alfonsina Storni, and Gabriela Mistral. Their work caused scandal and outrage but ultimately opened the way for other women to explore their experience in a woman's voice.
  • Cecilia Vicuña The Oxford Book of Latin American Poetry (2009)

• Other poets wrote of the special connective qualities of sound...Alfonsina Storni finds in her own body "wells of sounds/... where the spoken word/and unspoken word/echo"...
  • Cecilia Vicuña The Oxford Book of Latin American Poetry (2009)

External links

• Poetry Foundation
• Argentina 9 essential poems