Alejandra Pizarnik

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Alejandra Pizarnik (before 1969)

Alejandra Pizarnik (officially Flora Pizarnik ; born April 29, 1936 in Buenos Aires ; † September 25, 1972 ibid) was an Argentine poet of the 20th century .

Life

1936–1953: childhood and youth

Alejandra Pizarnik was born Flora Pizarnik on April 29, 1936 near Buenos Aires. Her parents Elías Pizarnik and Rejzla (Rosa) Bromiker, both Jewish , had emigrated from the Stalinist Soviet Union two years earlier and settled in the port and trading city of Avellaneda in the province of Buenos Aires, where the mother's sister lived with her family . Economically secured by the father's work as a jewelry seller, the Pizarnik family was able to lead a carefree existence and quickly integrated into the local community of Central European immigrants. In addition to their usual schooling, Alejandra and her sister Myriam, who is two years older than her, attended the Jewish Salman Travel School, where they learned the Yiddish language and became familiar with the Jewish religion and culture. There Alejandra, who at that time still had her name Flora, was called "Bluma" or "Blümele". As her literary career began later, she took the name Alejandra.

Alejandra spoke Spanish with an Eastern European accent, in addition to which she stuttered, which she did not completely abandon until the end of her life and which shaped her struggle with language that was so often invoked (here is something in common with Antonin Artaud, to whom she felt related throughout her life). Severe acne problems, asthma and the tendency to become fat set her apart from her contemporaries - especially her older sister, who corresponded completely to the conventional ideal of beauty - and caused a problematic relationship with her body, which became one of her numerous obsessions. So she took the appetite suppressant drug amphetamine at an early age, which years later caused repeated attacks of euphoria in connection with her strong emotional fluctuations. In later years, drug use also laid the physical basis for her nocturnal work phases, which she posthumously made a legend as the "daughter of insomnia".

1954–1959: studies and literary beginnings

At the Faculty of Philosophy and Philology at the University of Buenos Aires, Alejandra took courses in literary studies and journalism (until 1957). In addition to studying, which she did not complete, she was taught painting by Juan Battle Planes . Motivated by her professor Juan Jacobo Bajarlía, who discovered her literary talent at an early age and gave her extensive support as a young author, Alejandra Joyce , Breton , Proust , Gide , Claudel and Kierkegaard read and developed a pronounced predilection for surrealism. The confrontation with the subconscious was therefore not only groundbreaking for her therapy with the Argentine psychoanalyst and psychology professor Leon Ostrov, but also played a key role in the development process of her texts. The fascination for death and “lost childhood” that came with her affinity for surrealism moved these topics into the center of her work at an early stage.

Through Juan Jacobo Bajarlía, Alejandra made first contacts with Argentine writers, the Equis group around Roberto Juarroz and the literary group Poesía Buenos Aires around Raúl Gustavo Aguirre , and met her first publisher. In 1955 the first volume of poetry by the only 19-year-old Alejandra was published: La tierra más ajena (1955, German: The Stranger Earth ). Shortly thereafter, La última inocencia (1956, German The Last Innocence ) and Las aventuras perdidas (1958, German The Lost Adventures ) followed. In addition to almost fraternal friendships, such as those with Antonio Requeni and Olga Orozco , a key figure for them throughout their lives , there were relationships that combined literary engagement, deep personal ties and erotic sensuality, as in the case of the writer Elizabeth Azcona . Alejandra had affairs and love affairs with intellectuals and writers of both sexes, including in her later Paris years with Julio Cortázar and, as it is said, with Octavio Paz . In the rebellion against traditional gender roles that dominated especially in patriarchal Argentina, Alejandra openly confessed to erotic libertinism, as recorded in individual diary entries.

1960–1964: Paris

Alejandra lived in the Latin Quarter of the cultural metropolis of Paris and soon became a respected writer among the local scene of Latin American and European intellectuals. She has published literary reviews and essays, among other things as a permanent employee of the literary magazine Lettres Nouvelles , was in lively exchange with Octavio Paz , Julio Cortázar , Italo Calvino , André Pieyre de Mandiargues and Roger Caillois and got to know Simone de Beauvoir and Marguerite Duras . According to her biographer, the Argentine poet Cristina Piña , it was during these years that she forged her Rimbaud-oriented legend of poeta maldito , the talented avant-garde poet whose lifestyle was shaped by drug consumption, excessive alcohol and the deliberate transgression of sexual gender roles and social norms and was ostracized by civil society. This form of self-staging, which, according to Piña, laid the foundation for future legends during his lifetime, aims at a unity of life and work. Madness, suicide, and death became major themes in her literature and suggest a biographical interpretation. During her stay in Paris, her next volume of poetry, Árbol de Diana (1962, German Tree of Diana ) was published in Buenos Aires .

1965–1972: last years of life in Buenos Aires and international recognition

After her return, Alejandra lived until 1968 in her parents' house, with whom she had an unchanged problematic relationship - she herself describes it as a love-hate relationship. Her father, who suddenly died of a heart attack in 1967, has always financially secured her livelihood, and her mother's housekeeping was added, who viewed Alejandra's literary career with little understanding. For her next volume of poetry, Los trabajos y las noches (1965, Eng . The Works and the Nights ), Alejandra received the Primer Premio Municipal de Poesía in 1966 , a literary prize that marked her national breakthrough and which two years later with the renowned Guggenheim grant international recognition followed.

In 1968 Alejandra moved into her own apartment, which became a center of literary exchange as she withdrew more and more from public life there in order to work with maximum concentration. In the same year she published her next volume of poetry Extracción de la piedra de locura (1968, German salvage of madness ). In 1969 she traveled to New York for a few days and then on to Paris. Her disappointment there with her former friends and their civic obligations was great, but also her fundamental alienation towards the politically heated and sometimes anti-Semitic mood prompted her to leave after a few days, as her work was so focused on her own suffering that the political reflections and revolts of that time were of no concern to them.

In the following years she wrote her dramatic texts, which are infused with black humor, Los poseídos entre las lilas (1969, German: The possessed in lilac ) and La bucanera de Pernambuco o Hilda la polígrafa (1970-71, German: The pirate of Pernambuco or Hilda, the polymath ) and, in addition to her last volume of poetry, El infierno musical (1971, German: The musical hell ), published her story La condesa sangrienta (1971, German: T he bloodthirsty Countess ), which, in the style of fantastic literature, describes the story of the mass murderess and the horror legend incarnate Countess Erzsébet Báthory from the 16th century. Alejandra also continued her psychotherapy with the Argentine psychoanalyst Pichon Rivière, the father of her writer friend Marcelo Pichon Rivière.

After a failed suicide attempt in 1970, she spent many months in a clinic, but was then able to resume everyday life in her own apartment. Her diary entries from the summer and autumn of 1971 record further unsuccessful suicide attempts, which were followed by a five-month stay in the clinic until November 1971. Alejandra Pizarnik died on September 25, 1972 after taking an overdose of sleeping pills. According to the assessment of her biographer Cristina Piña , the intention to die is controversial, as Alejandra Pizarnik often took excessive amounts of sleeping pills in order to be able to sleep at all, and all external signs pointed to a stable everyday life (appointments already made for the next few days, etc.). Alejandra Pizarnik was buried on September 27, 1972 in the Jewish cemetery of La Tablada .

Lyrical creation

Alejandra Pizarnik was a master of the very short poem in free verse . In the later years she also wrote prose poems , which sometimes reached considerable length. In both cases she paid the same attention to the tonal character of the words as to their meaning. This creates breathtaking tensions between a few words that always form a well-sounding text or are repeated again and again in it.

The themes revolve around the lyrical ego , biographical, pseudobiographical, reflective; Not belonging, loss, near death.

The elegance of her style, the use of timeless-looking image worlds and, last but not least, numerous quotations and dedications attest to her great literary education and lively participation in the cultural life of her time; the adult side, so to speak, alongside a radically childish attitude.

Text example

Reloj

Dama pequeñísima
moradora en el corazón de un pájaro
sale al alba a pronunciar una sílaba
NO

Clock

Tiny
bird- heart resident lady
steps into dawn and says a syllable
NO

(from: Los trabajos y las noches )

bibliography

Publications during his lifetime

  • La tierra más ajena , Buenos Aires 1955, later rejected by her
  • La última inocencia , Buenos Aires 1956
  • Las aventuras perdidas , Buenos Aires 1958
  • Árbol de Diana , Buenos Aires 1962, with a foreword by Octavio Paz
  • Los trabajos y las noches , Buenos Aires 1965
  • Extracción de la piedra de locura , Buenos Aires 1968
  • Nombres y figuras , Barcelona 1969
  • El infierno musical , Buenos Aires 1971
  • La condesa sangrienta , Buenos Aires 1971, on Erzsébet Báthory
  • Los pequeños cantos , Caracas 1971

Translations into German

biography

  • Cristina Piña: Alejandra Pizarnik , Buenos Aires 1991

Web links

Commons : Alejandra Pizarnik  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Leopold Federmair: The craft of dying. In Neue Zürcher Zeitung, May 26, 2007, page 72.
personal data
SURNAME Pizarnik, Alejandra
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Pizarnik, Flora
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Argentine poet and writer
DATE OF BIRTH April 29, 1936
PLACE OF BIRTH Buenos Aires
DATE OF DEATH September 25, 1972
Place of death Buenos Aires