Alfonsina Storni

Argentine writer

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

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  • 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 ...”
  • 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?
  • 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

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  • 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
  • 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.
  • 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"...
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