Poets From Mexico

"Castellanos is one of the most brilliant writers of the last century, but when the Latin American boom in literature resounded in the United States, it was only the male voices that were heard."

"we see the surprising similarities between the renowned Mexican poet Rosario Castellanos and the young Peruvian poet Giovanna Pollarolo. The lyrical voices in this section subvert and rebel against routine; they speak about it as if it were a prison. The poets rebel through language which casts a light on and makes of their everyday lives a battlefield where objects become the signifiers of disorder and of liberty."

"Your verses were leafy trees, uncertain roads where the healers nested in the century plant."

"(who would you suggest we should be reading more among the women poets, especially in Latin America?) Well, she died already, but in Mexico, there was a poet called Rosario Castellanos. She was very good."

"Su silencio le producía vergüenza, como si callar fuera burlarse de los otros. Y como un castigo inmediato crecía, junto a la vergüenza, una sensación de soledad. Teodoro era un hombre aparte, amordazado por un secreto."

"don Agustín, que no tenía afición por la copa ni por el tabaco, que había guardado rigurosamente la continencia, era esclavo de un vicio: la conversación. Furtivo, acechaba los diálogos en los portales, en el mercado, en la misma catedral. Don Agustín era el primero en enterarse de los chismes, en adivinar los escándalos y se desvivía por recibir confidencias, por ser depositario de secretos y servir intrigas."

"la visión turbia como si sus entrañas estuvieran latiendo en medio de las cejas."

"La seguridad de su vida era tan frágil que había bastado la cara de un chamula, vista al través de un cristal, para hacerla añicos."

"El viento de las alturas huía graznando lúgubremente. Un sol desteñido, frío, asaeteaba aquella colina estéril."

"El idioma salía de sus labios, como debe salir de todo labio humano, enrojecido de vergüenza. Y Rominka, al arrancarse la costra de sus pecados, lloraba. Porque duele quedar desnudo."

"He venido, feliz como los ríos,/cantando bajo un cielo de sauces y de álamos/hasta este mar de amor hermoso y grande./Yo ya no espero, vivo."

"mi corazón, lugar de las hogueras,/y mi cuerpo que siempre me acompaña."

"Adiós para la tierra que en mi torno bailaba."

"ternura, la palabra pequeña, familiar/que cabía en mi boca."

"Lo que soñó la tierra/es visible en el árbol."

"El otro. Con el otro/la humanidad, el diálogo, la poesía, comienzan."

"Los pasivos alzan el clamor llamándose apóstoles de la evolución y condenando todo lo que tiene algo de rebeldía; apelan al miedo, hacen llamamientos patéticos al patriotismo; acuden a la ignorancia y llegan a aconsejar al pueblo que se deje matar y ultrajar en los próximos comicios y vuelvan una y otra vez a ejercer pacíficamente el derecho de sufragio, a que una y otra vez lo burlen y lo asesinen los tiranos. Pero nada de salirse del fétido rincón, al cual se pretende evolucionar agregando más y más inmundicias, más y más cobardías."

"La resistencia del pasivismo se revuelve ahora contra el impulso progresista de la revolución."

"La evolución verdadera que mejore la vida de los mexicanos, no la de sus parásitos, vendrá con la revolución: ésta y aquella se completan y la primera no pueda coexistir con los anacronismos y subterfugios que despiertan hoy los redentores del pasivismo. Para evolucionar es preciso ser libre y no podemos tener libertad si no somos rebeldes, porque nunca tirano alguno ha respetado a los pueblos pasivos; jamás un rebaño de carneros se ha impuesto con la majestad de su número inofensivo, al lobo que bonitamente los devora sin cuidarse de otro derecho que el de sus dientes. Hay que armarse, pero no de un voto inútil, que siempre valdrá tanto como el tirano quiere, sino de armas efectivas y menos candorosas cuyo uso nos traiga la evolución ascendente y no la regresiva que preconizan los luchadores pacifistas. ¡Pasividad, nunca! Rebeldía, ahora y siempre."

"Some of the greatest Latin American poets have been women. Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz, Gabriela Mistral, María Sabina, and Violeta Parra are among them, but their true place in the history of poetry has yet to be fully acknowledged...Sor Juana, who was the principal poet of the Americas in the seventeenth century, fought for the right of women to write and paid with her life."

"Like other pioneer women in American history, Sor Juana Inès paved the road to education and intellectuality for women. To America, she left a vision of the woman of the future, a legacy that continues in the mind and spirit of future generations. Today, women learn and nurture the child of the true Humanity that exists within all of us. To Mexico, Sor Juana's legacy stands as the patria with a clearer vision of itself and its people; an identity that set the stage for independence. In her universal thinking, Sor Juana challenged the control and exploitation of Mexico by Spain's most archconservative institution, the Church."

"Although Sor Juana abandoned her writing, the calibre of the body of work she left Mexico remains unparalleled. Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz soared as the most enlightened daughter of the new world. She challenged the foundation of the European Christian institution in her natural law perspective and understanding of the universe. Fearless, Sor Juana left the continent a mandate regarding the rights of women to think."

"Sor Juana defended her case for learned women and stated that women should be able to study if they wish. She cites learned Jewish and pagan women, as well as Christian; St. Catherine of Egypt, Ste. Gertrude, Ste. Paula, Ste. Theresa of Avila, among others. She also quotes part of the Bible in favor women's learning. She dared to argue and questioned St. Paul's meaning of 'Mulieres in ecclesia taceant, (let women be quiet in church.) Sor Juana spoke as to the wisdom of learning adding that unqualified men would be better off not studying since a little bit of learning can be dangerous in the hands of madmen. As an example, she cited the Heresiarchs, founders and leaders of a heretical sect."

"Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz became a model for my rebellion."

"The story of feminist Latinas spreads across centuries and is rich in heroines who demolish the stereotype of the "passive Latin woman." The landmarks are numerous in Mexico, from the openly feminist seventeenth-century intellectual Sor Juana Inés de La Cruz, a nun, to the first feminist congress of 1911 and the suffrage movement of the 1930s."

"Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz left behind many writings and, above all, inspiration for all women, for all time."

"As we have seen, those inspired by divine inspiration were amazingly steadfast. To cite just one example, the Mexican nun Sor Juana de la Cruz, when chastised by her confessor for her presumption in writing verse, replied that she could not help it and could not control her ability to do so; it came naturally to her and therefore must be a gift from God. From this she reasoned that she was entitled to write verse."

"Who is a revolutionary woman? A revolutionary woman wants change, not mere cosmetic change but change to the status quo, and she is willing to sacrifice to make this happen. We have some extraordinary examples: Sojourner Truth, Las Adelitas, Frida Kahlo, Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz, Dorothy Day, Malala Yousafzai, Coretta Scott King, and others."

"One of our first figures of note was a feminist Mexican nun turned poetess called Sor Juana Inez de la Cruz. She was the wittiest writer in the Spanish language between the death of Calderón (1680) and the Romantic era."

"Her famous Reply to Sor Filotea (1693) defending her right to knowledge, is a major document in the struggle for women's intellectual independence; it was recently published in Barcelona as "The First Women's Manifesto." Sor Juana's poignant awareness of the suppressed potentialities of women makes her the first feminist of the New World and one of its greatest thus far."

"Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz, who was the first feminist on this continent"

"I don't pretend to be anyone's voice. I have been very lucky to be published in Europe, and I say lucky because there are women who have been writing in Latin America since the seventeenth century, like Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz. The problem is that few people ever talk about them. Their work is rarely taught at the universities, there is no literary criticism on them, and they are not published, translated or distributed."

"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, who, five hundred years ago, took off her feminist gloves when she wrote, “Stupid men, who, without cause, accuse women,” words proclaimed rather shockingly."

"Probably the first official feminist in Mexican history was Sor Juana Inéz de la Cruz, who lived from 1648 to 1695. During her lifetime, she was honored as the tenth Muse of Mexico, and known through the Americas and Europe for her wit and intelligence. She argued against a sexual double standard in her famous poem, "Hombres necios" (Foolish Men): "Which has the greater/sin when burned/By the same lawless fever:/She who is amorously deceived,/Or he, the sly deceiver?/Or which deserves the sterner blame,/Though each will be a sinner:/She who becomes a whore for pay,/Or he who pays to win her?" Sor Juana argued for equality in education, but did not trust men to act as teachers. She suggested that a group of self-educated women should teach young females, instructing them not only in elementary subjects, but in literature, history, science, and theology as well."

"lady of mine and of all beloved women distant and hallucinated magician of verse, stranger to time, barefoot among the convents."

"No se avergüenzan los Sabios de mirarse convencidos; porque saben, como Sabios, que su saber es finito."

"¡Qué bien se ve que eran Sabios en confesarse rendidos, que es triunfo el obedecer de la razón el dominio!"

"¿Cuál mayor culpa ha tenido En una pasión errada: La que cae de rogada, O el que ruega de caído? ¿O cuál es más de culpar, Aunque cualquiera mal haga: La que peca por la paga, O el que paga por pecar?"

"Hombres necios que acusáis A la mujer, sin razón, Sin ver que sois la ocasión De lo mismo que culpáis: Si con ansia sin igual Solicitáis su desdén ¿Por qué queréis que obren bien, Si las incitáis al mal?"

"Yo no estimo tesoros ni riquezas; y así, siempre me causa más contento poner riquezas en mi pensamiento que no mi pensamiento en las riquezas."

"¿En perseguirme, mundo, qué interesas? ¿En qué te ofendo, cuando sólo intento poner bellezas en mi entendimiento y no mi entendimiento en las bellezas?"

"If we are a metaphor of the universe, the human couple is the metaphor par excellence, the point of intersection of all forces and the seed of all forms. The couple is time recaptured, the return to the time before time."

"Man does not speak because he thinks; he thinks because he speaks. Or rather, speaking is no different than thinking: to speak is to think."

"I want to go on, to go beyond; I cannot; the moment scatters itself in many things, I have slept the dreams of the stone that never dreams and deep among the dreams of years like stones have heard the singing of my imprisoned blood, with a premonition of light the sea sang, and one by one the barriers give way, all of the gates have fallen to decay, the sun has forced an entrance through my forehead, has opened my eyelids at last that were kept closed, unfastened my being of its swaddling clothes, has rooted me out of my self, and separated me from my animal sleep centuries of stone and the magic of reflections resurrects willow of crystal, a poplar of water, a pillar of fountain by the wind drawn over, tree that is firmly rooted and that dances, turning course of a river that goes curving, advances and retreats, goes roundabout, arriving forever:"

"I travel through your waist as through a river, I voyage your body as through a grove going, as by a footpath going up a mountain and suddenly coming upon a steep ravine I go the straitened way of your keen thoughts break through to daylight upon your white forehead and there my spirit flings itself down, is shattered now I collect my fragments one by one and go on, bodiless, searching, in the dark…. you take on the likeness of a tree, a cloud, you are all birds and now you are a star, now you resemble the sharp edge of a sword and now the executioner's bowl of blood, the encroaching ivy that over grows and then roots out the soul and divides it from itself,"

"willow of crystal, a poplar of water, a pillar of fountain by the wind drawn over, tree that is firmly rooted and that dances, turning course of a river that goes curving, advances and retreats, goes roundabout, arriving forever:"

"Modern man likes to pretend that his thinking is wide-awake. But this wide-awake thinking has led us into the mazes of a nightmare in which the torture chambers are endlessly repeated in the mirrors of reason."

"Solitude—the feeling and knowledge that one is alone, alienated from the world and oneself—is not an exclusively Mexican characteristic. All men, at some moment in their lives, feel themselves to be alone. And they are. To live is to be separated from what we were in order to approach what we are going to be in the mysterious future. Solitude is the profoundest fact of the human condition. Man is the only being who knows he is alone, and the only one who seeks out another. His nature—if that word can be used in reference to man, who has "invented" himself by saying "No" to nature—consists in his longing to realize himself in another. Man is nostalgia and a search for communion. Therefore, when he is aware of himself he is aware of his lack of another, that is, of his solitude."

"The word "death" is not pronounced in New York, in Paris, in London, because it burns the lips. The Mexican, in contrast, is familiar with death, jokes about it, caresses it, sleeps with it, celebrates it; it is one of his favorite toys and his most steadfast love. True, there is perhaps as much fear in his attitude as in that of others, but at least death is not hidden away; he looks at it it face to face, with impatience, disdain or irony."

"Death is a mirror which reflects the vain gesticulations of the living. The whole motley confusion of acts, occasions, regrets and hopes which is the life of each one of us finds in death, not meaning or explanation, but an end."