THE PIZARNIK MYTH

In reading the poetry of Alejandra Pizarnik from the point of view of childhood as a link between poetic persona and self-image, I have to begin by acknowledging the elevation of Pizarnik's work and image to something approaching cult status in Argentina and beyond. There have been a significant number of recent publications which reflect this high level of interest. Cristina Piña's edition of the Obras completas was the first major landmark. She has subsequently published a selection, Alejandra Pizarnik: Textos selectos, whilst another edition of Pizarnik's complete poetry has been issued, Poesía (1955–1972), edited by Pizarnik's friend Ana Becciú. Becciú has also brought out a volume of Pizarnik's prose works, Prosa completa, which as well as prose poems, humour and plays includes previously dispersed essays, reviews and interviews, all of which contribute to our understanding of Pizarnik in a much broader context as reader and critic, not only as poet. Pizarnik's work is also gradually spreading to an English-speaking audience; recent translations include the prize-winning version by Cecilia Rossi of Árbol de Diana, Diana's Tree, and Susan Bassnett's Exchanging Lives: Poems and Translations. Bassnett enters into dialogue with Pizarnik by juxtaposing her own poems with translations of Pizarnik; Inés Malinow attempts to get even closer to Pizarnik's memory in Alejandra secreta by fashioning poèmes trouvées incorporating phrases from Pizarnik's own letters to her psychoanalyst, León Ostrov.

All assessments of her reception concur in bestowing mythic status upon her; the Buenos Aires poetry magazine La Guacha refers to Pizarnik as ‘este mito porteño’, César Aira alludes to ‘el mito personal de la poeta’ (Aira 1998, pp. 78, 81 and 86) whilst in Clarín she is ‘la figura mítica de la poeta suicida’. Luis Chitarroni claims of her that ‘basta nombrarla para que en el aire vibren la poesía y la leyenda’ and Gabriela de Cicco claims that this process of mythologization occurred very rapidly.