Stateless from Birth, Inhabitants of a Utopia: Paris, Buenos Aires and the Voices of Death in the Final Poetry of Teresa Wilms Montt and Alejandra Pizarnik

Abstract

Paris and Buenos Aires. Two cities to return to, two paths with no return. The same streets are in nitely marginal and reviled according to the lived experience. For one, the return to Buenos Aires undermined the last breath of her vital and literary dismemberment. For the other, Paris brought down the last colorful flower of its wandering exile. On the other shore, the destinies are opposed: Pizarnik reaches poetic freedom in the city of lights and Wilms personal manumission and intellectual liberation in Buenos Aires at the beginning of the 20th century. Two shared places, two antagonistic visions. In common, a single disturbing element: the return to/from the family. The end, suicide. Death emerges as a disturbing protagonist as well as an inherent accomplice of the two tormented lyrical subjects in the last poetic works of the writers: En la quietud del m´ármol and Anuarí by Teresa Wilms Montt (or Teresa de la Cruz); Extracción de la piedra de locura and El infierno musical by Alejandra Pizarnik. The voracious impact against a blinded and incomprehensible world unfolds the two souls in illusory re ections of a mirror and in voices from beyond the grave. The macabre and the visceral envelop a deadly dreamscape with no hope of escape. Yes, perhaps some hope: refuge in language and writing, the utopia of inhabiting another country.