Introduction

This book examines the relationship between poetry and the public sphere as it is addressed in the work of three of the most important Latin American women poets of the twentieth century. Gabriela Mistral, Cecília Meireles, and Rosario Castellanos were prolific writers of poetry, narrative, and other genres, whose work often questioned deeply embedded social and sexual convention. For these women, the difficulties inherent in living a public life and writing for the betterment of society resonate deeply in their writing. To be taken seriously as women writers must have seemed an impossibility, and for all three, poetry provided a way out. The lyric challenged the ways these writers could reinscribe themselves as intellectuals and voice their strong opinions. Where straightforward narratives were not always felicitous, poetry offered glimpses of other mythic worlds and new associations of meaning. As Rosario Castellanos’s last stanza of ‘Última Crónica’ [Final Chronicle] outlines, it is not always easy to convey the truth, especially when patriarchal institutions forbid women to convey their realities. In this poem, she shows a writer at a loss for words when forced to describe the transformation of a monstrous woman. The amanuensis or chronicler can only stammer: Y continúo abyecta, la tarea de repetir grandeza, libertad , justicia , paz , sabiduria y...y...no entiendo ya este demente y torpe balbuceo. [And I continue, humiliated, the task of repeating ‘greatness’, ‘liberty’, ‘justice’, ‘peace’, ‘knowledge’ and... and... I no longer understand 1 this demented and slurred stammering language.] 1