Gabriella Mistral
(1889-1957)
She was not born Gabriela Mistral, she was born Lucila Godoy y Alcayaga. In 1945 she won the Nobel Prize for literature, this Chilean poet whose early life was laced with tragedy and early adult life was scratched deeply due to suicides of those she loved dearly.
Before today I was vaguely aware of her name but not of her work at all.
Again, I am remembering why it is important to take challenges like this one, the A to Z Blog Challenge, seriously. This time I have taken a passion and expanded it exponentially. We have been at this for almost a week, but I have learned so much and shared quite a bit even now. I am excited to continue to share more throughout April and beyond.
I am passionate about sharing women’s voices. I am passionate for women to come together in community – to find heroines as well as heros to discover how much more we have in common than those ways we are different.
Besides being the foremost Latin American poet of her time, Gabriela was an intellectual, an educator and consistently defending the rights of those who had little – if any – power. In 1906 she wrote a hard-hitting article called "La instrucción de la mujer" – The Education of Women. She had been denied the right to study and wanted be a change agent.
She was exactly that, repeatedly. She worked on her career as an educator and writer simultaneously. Her first writing credit published outside Chile was by a Nicaraguan publishing a paper in Paris in 1910.
Her writing also had spiritual overtones. As a lay member of the Franciscan order, she shared her profound love for nature in her gentle, powerful words.
Here, read these:
Do not trample the earth, do not crush the sweet-smelling fruit.
For love of it, bend down, smell it and give it your mouth
What the soul is to the body, so is the artist to his people.
I look forward to reading more of her poetry, don’t you?
This blog post is an entry in the A to Z Challenge. Each day in April (except Sundays) I will be featuring a woman in literary history. If you click on the logo below, you will be introduced to the writing of more than a thousand bloggers writing on a wide variety of topics in April, all from A to Z!
Julie Jordan Scott has been a Life & Creativity Coach, Writer, Facilitator and Teleclass Leader since 1999. She is also an award winning Actor, Director, Artist and Mother Extraordinaire. She was twice the StoryTelling Slam champion in Bakersfield. She teaches a teleclass/ecourse "Discover the Power of Writing & Telling Engaging, Enlightening Stories" which begins again April 19, 2012. Find details by clicking this link.
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