“Through the soft sand that the sea licks, her small footprint does not return again…” says the song that Ariel Ramírez and Félix Luna wrote to tell of the poet's suicide. Alfonsina Storni.
“God knows what anguish accompanied you, what old pains your voice silenced…” the beautiful song continues. But there was no soft sand and the reasons for the terrible decision are known. It was October 25, 1938, 85 years ago.
Alfonsina -poets are usually called by their name- she was born in Switzerland in 1892 but had lived in Argentina since she was very young. Her first book came out in 1916 and, although the intellectuals of her time criticized her, she never stopped writing. “In 1938, Alfonsina Storni was more important than Borges“His grandson Willie Storni, who is a professor at the Argentine Catholic University, told Infobae.
The thing is that writing would accompany her throughout her life. The Argentine poet had a complicated childhood and adolescence, filled with economic difficulties and moves. While she did household chores, she worked with her family, she later in her years as a teacher, as a single mother. Thus, this woman was “one of the first to open the way for other poets,” as Marina Mariasch says. in the prologue of his complete poetry, which Let's read -the editorial seal of Infobae– publishes on his anniversary and that It can be downloaded for free from the Bajalibros digital platform to be read on any phone, tablet or computer.
Alfonsina Storni addressed the constant tension between his aspiration for a world governed by justice and nobility, and the disparity with the most immediate environment that was often characterized by its mediocrity.
This edition includes all the poems included in his books: The restlessness of the rosebush (1916) The sweet hurt (1918) Irremediably (1919) Languor (1920) ochres (1925) Love poems (1926) World of seven wells (1934) and face mask and clover (1936). Additionally, his poem “Anhelos” appears in this edition, which was published in 1912 in the magazine Monos y Monadas; other poems not included in books - such as “Perro y mar”, “Pescadores” and “Romancillo cantable”, originally published in the newspaper La Nación; his poem “Partida” and the one he wrote to Horacio Quiroga upon learning of his death. Also his last poem before he died: “I'm going to sleep.”
Death
So how did he really die Alfonsina Storni? Yes, she committed suicide at sea. But it was not because of an unknown anguish or walking meekly towards the waves.
The poet - who was 46 years old at the time - had had cancer and had had her breast removed in 1935. In January 1938 she told her son Alejandro that she was having symptoms again and that she would not accept another invasive treatment. She waited until October and traveled to Mar del Plata. She stayed at the San Jacinto hotel, on 3 de Febrero Street, which belonged to a friend of hers, Luisa Orioli de Pizzigarni. There, - a chorizo house that no longer exists - she took up the pencil again and composed what would be her last poem. She titled it “I'm going to sleep”, she put it in an envelope, she sent it to the newspaper La Nación.
On October 25, she left the hotel without anyone seeing her. She walked about 500 meters. She climbed onto a breakwater - the spa of the Argentine Women's Club, in front of Plaza España - and jumped. But one of her shoes was trapped between the iron of the breakwater: this is how the precise place of her fall was known. They pulled her body out of the sea the next morning and as she was a renowned figure a doctor recognized her.
The site chosen was not where his monument is, a work of Luis Perlotti located in front of the La Perla spa. Originally, in 1948, the sculpture was at the top of the ravine and the figure was seen with its back to the sea, an error that was corrected years later.
the last poem
What did Alfonsina Storni write in those farewell verses that La Nación published two days after her death? “I'm going to sleep” she says like this:
Flower teeth, dew cap,
hands of herbs, you fine nurse,
lend me the earthy sheets
and the quilt of weeded mosses.
I'm going to sleep, my nurse, put me to bed.
Put a lamp at my bedside;
a constellation, the one you like;
They are all good, tone it down a little.
Leave me alone: you hear the buds breaking...
a light blue foot cradles you from above
and a bird traces some measures for you
so that you forget... Thank you... Ah, an order:
if he calls again on the phone
You tell him not to insist, I'm out.
Source: Infobae