Selected Poems of Gabriela Mistral

by Gabriela Mistral, Langston Hughes (Translator)

The first English translation of poems by the late Chilean poet who, in 1945, became the first Latin American author to win the Nobel Prize for Literature.

Genres: Poetry, Classics, Spanish Literature

119 pages, Paperback

Published January 1, 1957

About the author

Lucila de María del Perpetuo Socorro Godoy Alcayaga (pseudonym: Gabriela Mistral), a Chilean poet, educator, diplomat, and feminist, was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1945 "for her lyric poetry which, inspired by powerful emotions, has made her name a symbol of the idealistic aspirations of the entire Latin American world." Some central themes in her poems are nature, betrayal, love, a mother's love, sorrow and recovery, travel, and Latin American identity as formed from a mixture of Indian and European influences.

Reviews

[هدى يحيى · Rating 4 out of 5]

There was this girl of wax

but she wasn't made of wax

she was a sheaf of wheat standing in the threshing floor.

But she was not a sheaf of wheat

but a stiff sunflower...

[Jimmy · Rating 5 out of 5]

I hear
the couplet of fat
as it grows in the night
like a dune.
from "Midnight"

This Chilean poet has been on my radar for a while now, and I actually bought a different book of prose-poem translations a while ago, but was never able to really get into it. The other more-available translation is this Selected Poems by Ursula K. Le Guin (which I do not own yet, but will be seeking out). I've been hearing so many good things about Gabriela Mistral but there's always that risk with translated poetry of being completely underwhelmed, and not knowing if it's the translation or the poems themselves. When I started reading this volume, translated by Langston Hughes, I realized immediately that it was not the poet's fault that I never connected with her before.

From the eyes of wild beasts gentle tears will flow,
and the mountains You forged of stone will understand
and weep through their white eyelids of snow:
the whole earth will learn of forgiveness at Your hand.
from "Prayer"

Gabriela Mistral writes from an intense simplicity of expression, image, and emotion and I think Langston Hughes really understood that. Her poems really shine through in these translations. He pays much attention to the music and energy of her line.

In the thicket they look like fire;
when they rise, like silver darting.
And they go by even before they go,
cutting through your wonder.
from "Larks"

She moves from physical to metaphysical in a few syllables. She inverts cliches gracefully, without breaking a sweat or calling attention to it. Often her poems seem modest, small, and sweet, while hinting at something deeper.

and she became as water
that from a wounded deer turns bloody.
from "The Flower of the Air"

One quirk about this volume, though: the title "Selected Poems" suggests these are her best poems covering a broad range of topics. They may be her best poems, but they're not very broad ranging--over half of them deal with pregnancy, motherhood, and children. Many are lullabies. So it seems more like a selection of poems curated on one topic. I think (from browsing the Google Books preview) that the Ursula K. Le Guin translation may have a more broad range of poems on various topics.

This son of mine is more beautiful
than the world on which he steals a look.
from "Charm"

Now I am nothing but a veil; all my body is a veil beneath which a child sleeps.
from "To My Husband"

I feel my breasts growing,
rising like water in a wide pool, noiselessly. And their
great sponginess casts a shadow like a promise across my belly.
Who in all the valley could be poorer than I if my breasts never grew moist?
Like those jars that women put out to catch the dew of night,
I place my breasts before God.

That's not a complaint though, because before this I had only read a handful of poems about motherhood (mostly by my friend Sarah Vap). It was really nice to see this seldom explored topic given its due all the way back in the 1920's (which was when Mistral published her first poems).

A breath that vanishes in a breath
and a face that trembles because of it
in a meadow where nothing trembles.
from "Paradise"

[Leslie · Rating 4 out of 5]

While I am not a mother (and don't have much maternal feeling), I still found these poems moving. Mistral's poems in this collection focused mostly on the pregnancy & infant stages of motherhood, such as this one (Eternal Grief):

"If he suffers within me I grow pale; grief overtakes me
at his hidden pressure, and I could die from a single
motion of this one I can not see.

But do not think that only while I carry him, will he be
entangled within me. When he shall roam free on the
highways, even though he is far away from me, the wind that
lashes him will tear at my flesh, and his cry will be in my
throat, too. My grief and my smile begin in your face, my
son."

[Luke · Rating 3 out of 5]

I've come to realize that my enjoyment of many a classically lauded piece of literature has as much to do with my acumen as my instinctive distaste for many of the themes that such writing has traditionally shut out: femininity, motherhood, child-rearing, and a host of other topics that have been frequently shunted off to the side of the artificially rendered sphere of influence that is the domestic woman. I've progressed to the point of realizing how nasty an attitude this is and being able to objectively appreciate, as I do here, how important it is for such subjects to be acknowledged and, within reasonable extent, glorified just as much as are the more conventional themes of warfare, skill development, and general satisfaction of one's individual ambitions. However, it remains the case that, if there is any particular instance of life that I am triggered by (and I mean triggered in the clinical sense, not how whatever fascist edgelord is spewing out these days), it is Mother's Day, and when it comes to treatment of such in my own personal case, the most effective methods include as much minimization of interaction as is within reason. Between this and The Squire, I'm certainly getting a lot of practice at selective exposure (done on the level with which the individual is comfortable, by the way, not however some neurotypical "thinks" it should be done), but it wasn't until I sat and started to write about it here that I thought, hm. I may perhaps have subjected myself a tad too much to the subject for the past week or so. So, take this evaluation with a bag of salt, as I'm evidently far from the best person to be reviewing this.

Mistral had some poetry near the end that wasn't so grounded in the topic of children and the like that I was able to pull myself together enough for a more conventional reading. Throughout, what I especially liked was the emphasis on color, flora, and fauna, a grounding of the poetical in the physical landscape of sensory indulgences always doing me favors in the enjoyment side of things. A sprinkling of feminism was nice to see at times, especially when mingled with the odd vein of Christianity that does less and less for me as time goes by. The third to last, "The Flower of the Air" as part of 'Country With No Name', was the most successful, with its rich evocations of color, pagan narrative, and pleasing rhythm. Still, I wasn't blown away by that or anything else to push the rating any higher, and I'd like to think that the translator being Langston Hughes, half the reason why I bought the edition to begin with, had the required linguistic capability combined with poetic sensibility to make for a better translation than is on average delivered. I've already discussed to some extent my thoughts on why this was the case beyond purely narratological aspects, so I won't be delving into it further. Beyond that, while this is the most popular selection from Mistral's bibliography, it isn't the only one, and I'd like to give the author at least one more chance in my book before I call it quits.

Regardless of my personal, and obviously biased, evaluation, I will be trumpeting this first Latin American Nobel for Literature laureate and probable bisexual (definitely not monosexual at any rate) author for as long as it proves necessary. It's nauseatingly obvious why I barely see this author amongst the usual trumpeters of the Nobel Prize and other Eurocentric appraisals of literature, and it's just bad luck that my own issues make this particular selection of Mistral's work such a bad fit for me. It's worth mentioning that Ursula K. Le Guin is another famous name who tried her hand at bringing Mistral into English, so if that brings in a few more readers, I'm all for it. Hughes did mention focusing his translations on "children, motherhood, and love" and avoiding pieces such as 'Sonetos de la Muerte' for various reasons, so I imagine a different translation has a good chance in resulting in a less claustrophobic, in my case at any rate, thematic selection. For now, though, as soon as I get through 'The Squire', I am taking a good long break from this subject. This will not be difficult, as Mistral being my last challenge read by a woman of color means that a chunk of my reading priorities has opened up, a quarter which I intend to focus on the 21st century with no small amount of social justice. A tough topic in its own right, but one I can handle just fine, and I'm happy with doing so for the sake of those who cannot.

[Gill · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was interested in the poems, but I didn't find their translation by Langston Hughes very good.

Available on Openlibrary

[M.W.P.M. · Rating 4 out of 5]

This selection, the first English translation of Nobel Prize Winner Gabriela Mistral's poetry, includes poems from seven collections: Cradle Songs, Poems for Mothers , For the Saddest of Mothers, Grain Divine, Earth and Women, Richness, and Country with No Name...

From Cradle Songs...

The night is left lonely
from the hills to the sea.
But I, who cradle you,
I am not lonely!

The sky is left lonely
should the moon fall in the sea.
But I, who cling to you,
I am not lonely!

The world is left lonely
and all know misery.
But I, who hug you close,
I am not lonely!

- I Am Not Lonely, pg. 20

From Poems for Mothers...

Mother, tell me all you have learned from your own
pain. Tell me how he is born and how from within me
all entangled comes a little body.

Tell me if he will seek my breast alone, or if I
should offer it to him, coaxing.

Now teach me the science of love, mother. Show me
new caresses, gentle ones, gentler than those of a
husband.

How, in days to come, shall I wash his little head?
And how shall I swaddle him so as not to hurt him?

Teach me that lullaby, mother, you sang to rock me
to sleep. It will make him sleep better than any
other song.

- Tell Me, Mother, pg. 49

From For the Saddest of Mothers...

My father said he would get rid of me, yelled at my mother
that he would throw me out this very night.

The night is mild; by the light of the stars, I might find
my way to the nearest village; but suppose he is born at such
a time as this? My sobs perhaps have aroused him; perhaps he
wants to come out not to see my face covered with tears.
But he might shiver in the naked air, although I would cover him.

- Thrown Out, pg. 55

From Grain Divine...

Soft hair, hair that has all the softness in the world, how could I be happy dressed in silk, if I did not have you in my lap? Each passing day is sweet and nourishing only because of those hours when ti runs through my hands.
Put it close to my cheeks; rest it in my lap like flowers; braid it into me to ease my sorrows; strengthen the dying light with it.
When I am in heaven, may God give me no angel's wings to soothe the hurt in my heart; spread instead across the sky the hair of the children I loved, and let their hair sweep forever in the wind across my face.

- Children's Hair, pg. 65

From Earth and Women...

The blood red rose
I gathered yesterday,
and the fire and cinnamon
of the carnation,

Bread baked with
anise seed and honey,
and a fish in a bowl
that makes a glow:

All this is yours,
baby born of woman,
if you'll just
go to sleep.

A rose, I say!
I say a carnation!
Fruit, I say!
And I say honey!

A fish that glitters!
And more, I say -
if you will only
sleep till day.

- If You'll Just Go To Sleep, pg. 72

From Richness...

I have a true happiness
and a happiness betrayed,
the one like a rose,
the other like a thorn.
To that taken from me
I was not betrothed:
I have a true happiness
and a happiness betrayed.
And I am rich in purple
and rich in melancholy.
How well loved the rose!
And what a lover the thorn!
Like a double image
of fruits that are twins,
I have a true happiness
and a happiness betrayed.

- Richness, pg. 93

From Country with No Name...

Country that is missing,
strange country,
lighter than angel
and nebulous password,
colour of dead algae,
colour of mist,
ageless as time
lacking ageless bliss.

No pomegranates spring
or jasmines blow,
it has neither skies
nor seas of indigo.
Your name is a name
never heard called have I,
and in country with no name
I am going to die.

Neither bridge nor boat
brought me hither.
Nobody told me
it was island or shore.
I did not seek
or discover it either.

It seems like a fable now
that I've learned it,
dreaming to stay
and dreaming to fly.
But it is my country
where I live and I die.

I was born to things
that are no country:
of lands upon lands
I had and I lost;
of children I have watched die;
and things mine no longer
to which once I said my.

I lost mountain ranges
where once I slept;
orchards of gold I lost
sweet with life;
islands I lost
of cane and indigo,
and I watched their shadows
close in on me
and crowds and lovers
become country.

Manes of mist
with no napes and no backs
I watched the sleeping
winds make fly
and through errant years
turn into a country,
and in country with no name
I am going to die.

- Country That Is Missing, pg. 107-108

[Nuri · Rating 4 out of 5]

Loss, yearning, motherhood, love for the feminine and the earth, are the themes documented in Mistral's poetry, which are short and simple reads, and full of rhythm.

To me, the poetry was just a window to the person Mistral. I cannot yet connect to the elements that forms the core of her poetry, so I took them on face value. But I'm fascinated by her life, though. By her virtue of being a teacher, Mistral had also become a mother to many children. (Almost reminds me of Frida Kahlo).

Her loved died by suicide, and she never married or had children of her own. But she was a teacher, who nurtured the lives of many children. She represented her country, Chile, as a Consul, which shows the grandeur of her life.

She wrote about her dead lover, the son she never had. She wrote for children, the mothers in the world. Empathy and love formed the core of Lucila Godoy Alcayaga.

The poems might have been a way of filling a hole, to transcend the sadness for what she lacked. And doing so, she ultimately became a nurturer and giver.

This also reminds me of a story of the spiritual teacher, Dipa Ma, and when she suffered childlessness, her husband wisely suggested that she adopt everyone as her own child. But in those difficult days before she encountered the spiritual teachings that would transform her life, she was lost. By the end of her life, though, Dipa Ma had indeed become a mother to all.


The following poem is a doorway to her soul.

FOR CHILDREN Many years from now, when I am a little mound of silent dust, play with me, with the earth of my heart and my bones. Should a mason gather me up, he would make me into a brick, and I would be stuck forever in a wall, and I hate quiet corners. If they put me into the wall of a prison, I would blush with shame at hearing a man sob. Or if I became the wall of a school, I would suffer from not being able to sing with you in the mornings.
I had rather be dust that you play with on the country roads. Pound me, because I have been yours. Scatter me, as I did you. Stomp me because I never have you truth entire and beauty whole.
O, I mean, sing and run above me that I might kiss your precious foot prints.
Say a pretty verse when you have me in your hands, and I will run with pleasure through your fingers. Uplifted at the sight of you, in your eyes I will look for the curly heads of those I taught.
And when you have made of me some sort of state, shatter it each time, as each time before children shattered me in tenderness and sorrow."

[David Ranney · Rating 2 out of 5]

COUNTRY THAT IS MISSING

Country that is missing,
strange country,
lighter than angel
and nebulous password,
color of dead algae,
color of mist,
ageless as time
lacking ageless bliss.

No pomegranates spring
or jasmines blow,
it has neither skies
nor seas of indigo.
Your name is a name
never heard called have I,
and in country with no name
I am going to die.

Neither bridge nor boat
brought me hither.
Nobody told me
it was island or shore.
I did not seek
or discover it either.

It seems like a fable now
that I've learned it,
dreaming to stay
and dreaming to fly.
But it is my country
where I live and I die.

I was born of things
that are no country:
of lands upon lands
I had and I lost;
of children I have watched die;
and things mine no longer
to which one I said my.

I lost mountain ranges
where once I slept;
orchards of gold I lost
sweet with life;
islands I lost
of cane and indigo,
and I watched their shadows
close in on me
and crowds and lovers
become country.

Manes of mist
with no napes and no backs
I watched the sleeping
winds make fly
and through errant years
turn into a country,
and in country with no name
I am going to die.

[TAB · Rating 3 out of 5]

These poems are so honest, so hopeful and so sad all in one. I have read a few of them to my young daughter even though more than a few of them have morbid or dark underpinnings or endings. But that's how children's literature generally goes, so I don't think there's any problem there. What I love most about Mistral is the defiance I get from these poems, that death or hardship can take away what we love most, but on we live and write. Foolhardy? Maybe somewhat but also determined.

And yeah poetry is confusing and honestly probably sometimes just doesn't make any sense, but Langston Hughes also does a great job with this translation. Obviously I haven't read the original Spanish, but what I'm saying is that the verse is there, the beats are there, even the rhymes are occasionally there and it flows "like mist down from the mountains".

[Susie · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is not your usual poetry about motherhood. It is heavy, gritty, often sad and tragic, yet weirdly uplifting in parts, at least for me. She uses a lot of imagery references to nature which helped me in understanding her...somewhat!

Happy to put a Nobel Prize winner on my 'read' shelf!

[Eric Hinkle · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great collection of poems by Gabriela Mistral, a goddess during her life in 20th century Chile. Translated by Langston Hughes.

[Ali Nazifpour · Rating 1 out of 5]

Another inexplicable choice of the Swedish Academy (to me). About ninety percent of the poems in this selection are about motherhood and not in a particularly interesting way like dealing with the complexities of the experience, but just surface level and it got extremely tiring by the end of the book, like alright, we get it already, you love your fucking son and being a mother, congratulations on having reproduced, now can you find a second subject matter for the love of God please. Speaking of God, her poems are also very religious and very preachy. Overall they remind me of poems published in Iranian school textbooks. In one of the very few poems that she's not talking about her damned son, she talks about how she can't be called ugly because she looks like her mother and was created by God, and that was one of the most unintentionally hilarious poems I've read in my life, laughing imagining her malding so badly over being called ugly that she had to sit down and write an entire poem about it and saying "Yeah I'm ugly? Well if I'm ugly then by extension you're calling my mom ugly and if you're calling my mom ugly then you're gonna catch these hands and also? Also, you're calling God's handiwork ugly so that's blasphemy and that means I get to burn you at the stake."

Definitely one of the worst Nobel laureates. Gabriela Mistral to poetry is like Thomas Kincade to painting. Langston Hughes himself was a million times more deserving. Blegh.

[sin · Rating 3 out of 5]

Say a pretty verse when you have me in your hands, and I will
run with pleasure through your fingers.

spiritual mother of chile, first queer woman nobel prize in literature title holder, i wasn’t familiar with ur game but i am now.

[Sebastián · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lectura de tesis!!

[Francisca · Rating 3 out of 5]

in 2017, it was the year of virginia woolf. in 2018, it was the year of marcel proust. in 2019, it will be the year of the female nobel prize laureates. hurrah!

MAY: gabriela mistral (won in 1945 becoming the first latinamerican woman to win the prize--and the most important laurate of my home country, chile)

according to the nobel commity, mistral won due to her " lyric poetry which, inspired by powerful emotions, has made her name a symbol of the idealistic aspirations of the entire Latin American world. " i concur.

i feel conflicted: i wish more people knew of gabriela mistral's poetry and read her works--how could i not? she was only the first female latinamerican author to win the nobel prize for literature; the first chilean author to do so as well; she was a fiercely independent woman focused on children's education; she was queer; she is the only woman depicted in chilean currency. all the best ingredients to make a character for the ages.

yet, if i were to recommend her work in translation or in the original spanish, i would go with the spanish any day, thus thwarting my wishes of a greater reader base--unlike, i should add, my conflict with pablo neruda's poetry (Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair, i do prefer his work in translation over the original (for the life of me, i cannot say why).

to me, it makes perfect sense to prefer mistral in its original version with its original words--a large portion of her work deals with children's poetry and the overall whimsicality of childhood. those were the poems i liked the most growing up, they were both for and about me. although i can applaud her work for bridging the gap between myself and a life-experience utterly foreign to me as motherhood (in the same way as she did so since the closest person to her to have been a son was her nephew who committed suicide at seventeen), those poems dealing with the experience and the perspective of being a child are the ones that resonate the most to me.

not to look down langston hughes' translation, but i do feel something to be missing from her rhymes when encountering through this veil of english. however, i cannot say whether it is because of my own memories acting up or hughes' work, my favourite poem of hers retained its title within this collection. it is quite comforting to know that, at times, regardless of language barriers, something do not change and the power of poetical language remains stubbornly the same:

for the english readers: give me your hand
for the spanish readers: dame la mano

[Jessica]

Amazed to discover Langston Hughes TRANSLATED these poems by Chilean poet, 1945 Nobel Laureate Gabriela Mistral to publish the first English edition of her poems in 1957.

Who knew?!

Also found a new she-ro in Gabriela Mistral: poet, traveler, educator, journalist.

This particular collection predominately includes motherhood poems from Desolación. I'm motivated to seek out her other collections, eyeing Tala and Locas Mujeres.

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poet...

#HispanicHeritageMonth

[Evelyn Lee · Rating 4 out of 5]

I struggle to understand poetry, but continue to persevere, because every now and again I am awestruck by the rhythm of the words or the pictures painted in my mind that clearly convey feeling about something. This collection of poems by Gabriela Mistral often beautifully capture the feelings of a young woman being pregnant, or the love of children. There were also a few poems of nature that intrigued me.

[Caroline]

It really was a joy to read a book of poems for Clubbe this month -- esp interesting for Langston Hughes' introduction / translator's note.

[Jennifer Stoy · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was an absolutely beautiful collection and having Langston Hughes as the translator was an extra gift.