Solo este día: Selección y nota introductoria de Vicente Quirarte

by Rosario Castellanos

Pocos escritores mexicanos -sin distinción de género- fueron tempranos dueños de una escritura tan sólida como bien dirigida.  Persistió en el crecimiento orgánico de su escritura y de su vida, se transformó en ejemplo de tesón y honestidad, representó a México y su cultura en el extranjero y abandonó este mundo de manera tan contundente como llegó a ocuparlo.

Xavier Villaurrutia señaló que cuando un escritor es poeta, toda su escritura está regida por esa exigencia. Los primeros libros publicados por Rosario Castellanos son exclusivamente de poesía. Sin embargo, con el paso de los años es la parte menos estudiada de su obra. A volver a esa parte de su escritura, a su cultivo incesante del verso, está dedicada la presente antología.

234 pages, Kindle Edition

First published June 1, 2013

About the author

Rosario Castellanos Figueroa (25 May 1925 – 7 August 1974) was a Mexican poet and author. Along with the other members of the Generation of 1950 (the poets who wrote following the Second World War, influenced by César Vallejo and others), she was one of Mexico's most important literary voices in the last century. Throughout her life, she wrote eloquently about issues of cultural and gender oppression, and her work has influenced feminist theory and cultural studies. Though she died young, she opened the door of Mexican literature to women, and left a legacy that still resonates today.

Throughout her career, Castellanos wrote poetry, essays, one major play, and three novels: the semi-autobiographical Balún Canán and Oficio de tinieblas (translated into English as The Book of Lamentations) depicting a Tzotzil indigenous uprising in Chiapas based on one that had occurred in the 19th century. Despite being a ladino – of mestizo, not indigenous descent – Castellanos shows considerable concern and understanding for the plight of indigenous peoples. "Cartas a Ricardo," a collection of her letters to her husband Ricardo Guerra was published after her death as was her third novel, Rito de iniciación. Rosario Castellanos said of the collection of her letters in Cartas a Ricardo that she considered them to be her autobiography. Rito de iniciación is in the bildungsroman tradition about a young woman who discovers her vocation of a writer.
Castellanos' poem, "Valium 10," is in the confessional mode, and is a great feminist poem comparable to Sylvia Plath's "Daddy."

(from Wikipedia)

Reviews

[Sofía · Rating 4 out of 5]

Rosario Castellanos es una poeta muy sólida, es decir, con un estilo logrado al igual que su temática. Esto es una ventaja pero, al mismo tiempo, un inconveniente. Da la impresión que en ocasiones sus poemas son reiterativos, como si su obra fuera un solo poema fragmentado.

[Rubí · Rating 5 out of 5]

Adored this so. New favorite poet. Her imagery is so complex and expands the imagination of what is possible with language. Castellanos goes deep into her pain and love and traverses womanhood and life so meticulously. Lingering in the complexity and contradiction of life comes so easily to her.