Lamentations from the Otherworld

In Gabriela Mistral’s penultimate books of poetry, Lagar I (1954) and Lagar II (1991), she speaks of women who have no name and no face, women who ‘dance’, ‘laugh, and kill’ (‘La bailarina’). 1 She refers to them as unspeakable or unnameable. ‘They take great effort / and blood to catch’ (‘y ahora cuesta jadeo / y sangre ganarla’; ‘Memoria de la Gracia’). 2 When caught, they shed or burn their body parts with powers beyond comprehension (‘La cabelluda’). 3 They live in ‘empty places’, either inside the speaker’s mind or outside in groves, near mountains or in caves (‘Lugar Vacío’). 4 Whether dead or alive, bloody or pale, these women violate our security and principles as readers: we do not feel comfortable following them into uncertain realms that go beyond the simplicity of literal language. As if summoning Kristeva, Mistral’s women take us into the land of the semiotic ‘chora’ and a space before language. Mistral does not allow for her women to be easily discerned or defined with exact meaning. Without referents and common associations, her poetic parameters jumble in confusion and doubt.