Alfonsina Storni: "Aquel micromundo poetico"

Abstract

The poetry of Alfonsina Storni, especially that part which is most often presented in anthologies, reads like an inventory of the concerns of nonconformist women, with its rage and helplessness at male expectations, the seeming impossibility of equality in love, and dissatisfaction at the traditional roles imposed on women. It is as if the female voice in her poetry speaks from (and against) the vision of the woman embodied in a male discourse. The earth, the sea, the female body, and love are seen in terms of passion, despair and yearning for fulfillment on an ideal plane. These are the traits which have helped to make Alfonsina Storni one of Latin America's best known poets, which make her poetry accessible to a large audience and serve almost as thesis poems to illustrate the plight of the woman. Yet the real ringing of independence, the move to refocus these issues and to develop another kind of voice in her poetry, is the voice less often heard.