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Aposentos

 

In Aposentos, Blanco's awareness of being a woman is the dominant theme. Using a subversive language that praises sensuality and sexuality, the poet glorifies each part of the female body. Her objective is to inaugurate a new sociological and cultural space confronting the prevalent stereotypes that limit female expression. The identification of woman and Nature emerges continuously in Blanco's poems to communicate their essential creative commonality. It becomes a double discursive axis of denouncement: the subordinated role of women in society, and the generalized repression of their emotions, their experience of love, and writing. Blanco's poetry deviates from the patriarchal tradition and vindicates the validity of a female discourse, the synthesis of a personal and historical process.

Initiation

 

And I was given this prayer

to be said only

during the hours of bleeding:

 

I learn from menses

Forge my contiguity with the Moon

From the ubiquitous Earth

I draw my strength

 

I know month to month

there is a child who dreams me..

 

 

Translated by Susan Sherman

Sketches

 

I

 

God drew up some sketches of woman:

 

full‑face and ivory, I

of berries, silhouetted, I.

 

Dubious.

Damned choices!

 

II

 

Disavowal of fuzz on the pubis

               I

tyrant of my woodland flora

will summon up peaches.

 

III

 

I feared my breasts,

so hung them up next to my blood

 

Look at them:

They are fruits of the pine.

 

IV

 

I have apprehended the when of my skin.

diving into dizzying waters

Deep riverbed

a roaring, perhaps.

Lengthy course ahead,

already from a lucid kindergarten

I come forth.

 

 

V

 

Listening for my body's sounds, they prod me. And how!

I am an orange tree

all decked out in suns.

 

I offer solutions:

It was chance

or blossoms.

 

VI

 

Leaning on the deftness of my blood

as on an August day

I rehearse my rising

Weightless ascent

of estrogen, I!

 

 

Translated by Elizabeth Córdova

 

When It Is

 

When it is March

When fuzz covers

When blood comes close

 

They will purify your womb

Pour milk and honey under your tongue

 

You will have taken the first step

Initiated your menses.

 

 

Translated by Agueda Pizarro

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