CANCELED—Hacia el silencio perfecto: La poesía de Alejandra Pizarnik (Toward a Perfect Silence: The Poetry of Alejandra Pizarnik)

**Please note: this event has been canceled.**

OPEN TO THE PUBLIC | This event will be delivered in Spanish. Q&A will include Spanish and English.

Hacia el Silencio Perfecto: La Poesía de Alejandra Pizarnik (Toward a Perfect Silence: The Poetry of Alejandra Pizarnik)

La obra de la poeta argentina Alejandra Pizarnik (1936-1972) representa una batalla implacable entre la palabra y el silencio. Los límites del lenguaje como modo de codificar y comunicar la experiencia humana es un conocido tropo romántico, pero Pizarnik lleva este tropo a extremos sin precedentes en el contexto de la literatura latinoamericana. En esta charla exploraré la actitud ambivalente de Pizarnik hacia el silencio, por un lado, como falta o ausencia, y por otro lado, como el ideal místico (y textual) de plenitud. En última instancia, concluyo que no es ninguno de estos términos, sino una paradoja irresoluble, lo que caracteriza los acercamientos líricos de la poeta hacia el silencio.

Toward a Perfect Silence: The Poetry of Alejandra Pizarnik

The work of the Argentine poet Alejandra Pizarnik (1936-1972) represents an unrelenting battle between the word and silence. The limits of language as a means to codify and communicate human experience is a familiar Romantic trope, but Pizarnik carries this trope to unprecedented extremes, at least in the context of Latin American literature. In this talk I will explore Pizarnik’s ambivalent treatment of silence as both lack or absence and as the mystical (and textual) ideal of plenitude. Ultimately, I conclude that it is neither of these terms, but rather an unresolvable paradox, that characterizes the poet’s most probing lyrical approaches to silence.

Author Bio

Melanie Nicholson is Professor of Spanish at Bard College, where she teaches Latin American literature. She holds an MFA in Poetry from the University of Arizona and a PhD in Hispanic Literature from the University of Texas at Austin. Her monographs include Evil, Madness, and the Occult in Argentine Poetry (2002) and Surrealism in Latin American Literature: Searching for Breton’s Ghost (2013). Her articles on Latin American poetry and prose have appeared in Latin American Literary Review, Revista de Estudios Hispánicos, Crítica Hispánica, Studies in Twentieth and Twenty-First Century Literature, Journal of European Studies, and Modern Fiction Studies, among others. Her translations have appeared in Translation Review, Mundus Artium, Denver Quarterly, Yale Review, and Puerto del Sol. She co-translated with Mary G. Berg A Talisman in the Darkness, fiction by Olga Orozco.