A Square Tear...

By Juan J Miret

68 years have passed of that sad event in the beach of La Perla, in the city of Mar de Plata, which, an amazing poetess, spilled her last tear, but square...

Alfonsina Storni, lived at a time at which the feminine speech more than unknown was unacceptable. She was of the greatest, among others like Mistral, Loynaz, Vaz Ferreira, Agustini or De Ibarbourou.

Alfonsina, was born far from America, in the Swiss corner of the Ticino, in Capriasca in May, 1892. Nevertheless, when being transferred by her family to the gorgeous Argentina, adopted like own: Santa Fé, Rosario and Buenos Aires.
Its life was complex, controverted, irreverent, sad, but above all the things: Very real.

She started working from a very early age, helping in the family restaurant.

Years later, She became in a school teacher.

Her initial writings opened other doors. And thus. She's able to start working in literary magazines: Mundo Rosarino and the famous one, Monos y Monadas.

Shortly after, She initiates her long collaboration with the magazine: Mundo Argentino.

Breaking the rigid schemes of the time, She must face a society that does not tolerate to be unmarried mother.

Thus, in Buenos Aires, begins her skillful literary works: La Inquietud del Rosal, is published.

Her economic situation was critic, She had to alternate her literary passion with some other jobs. She was a cashier in a store and a mail carrier for the magazine . There, She met José Enrique Rodó, Amado Nervo, José Ingenieros y Manuel Ugarte.

Time later, her finances started improving and She's able to travel to Montevideo, where She met the Uruguayan poetess Juana de Inarbourou and also whom will be her great friend, the writer Horacio Quiroga.

In 1920, her work: Languidez , obtained the First Place in the Municipal Poetry Contest and the Second Place in the National Award of Literature.

Ocra, is published in 1925, opening a new frontier.

At the same time, she is a professor of reading and declamation.

Little by little, her poetry, fundamentally of loving thematic, begins to move away of the Modern current and it becomes more real, direct, controversial and unique.

With her trips to Europe at the beginning of the 30's, She started a erotic poetry, simply irreverent for the time. Indeed.

She published: Mundo de Siete Pozos and Mascarilla Y Trébol.

Later her great friend, Horacio Quiroga, died, then a light was extinguished in the heart of Alfonsina. The harsh solitude took her to the vast sea in the beach of Perla in Mar de Plata .

In these days, We should remember her, listening to the song named Alfonsina y el Mar, interpreted by Mercedes Sosa.

... Perhaps, a square tear will be spilled...