25 jan.-2023

Alfonsina Storni is an Argentinian poet and writer of modernism.

Her work is prolific, vigorous, and original. she appeared between 20-30 decades of the last century and she considered the first female poet in argentine

Alfonsina Storni was a storm of intensity, and maybe we could say that she was one of the first female renowned poets in Argentina. And in her time (20’s / 30’s) that was a lot, actually. Like Pizarnik, she was struggling with serious issues of mental health and didn’t have the care she needed, in my opinion. After a lifetime of devoting to literature (and demanding space for more women in it, hey!), Alfonsina went to Mar del Plata (a beautiful beach city in Buenos Aires) and drowned herself in the sea. I know, I know, I’m telling sad stories, but talking about love can be sad, and also, powerful, like this poem by Storni:

WORK OF LOVE (fragment)

Roses and lilies you see in hawthorn;

you play to be: it fits in your hand,

tiny emerald, the ocean;

speaking with no tongue, you twist fate.

Family and early years of Alfonsina Storni
Alfonsina Storni was born in Capriasca, Switzerland, on October 25, 1892.

Her parents, Alfonso Storni and Paulina Martignoni, had emigrated to the province of San Juan, Argentina, in 1880.

They founded a small family business; Years later, the beer bottles labeled “Cerveza Los Alpes, from Storni y Cía”, were famous throughout the region.

At the end of 1891, Alfonso and his wife traveled to Switzerland; they left the two oldest children, María and Romero, in San Juan.

On May 22, 1892, Alfonsina was born, the third daughter of the Storni-Martignoni couple. When Alfonsina was 4 years old, the three of them returned to Argentina, to San Juan.
In 1916 she began to publish poems and prose stories in the literary magazine “La Nota“.

other notable poem it was her last one :
Flower teeth, dew cap,
Herb hands, you fine nurse,
keep the earthy sheets on me
and the weed moss quilt.

I’m going to sleep, my nurse put me to bed.
Put a lamp at the bedside
a constellation, the one you like,
they’re all good; lower it a little.

Leave me alone: ​​you hear the buds break,
a celestial foot cradles you from above
and a bird draws you a few bars
so you forget. Thank you … Ah, a commission,
if he calls again on the phone
You tell him not to insist, that I have left …