Those lines described exactly how I’d felt during my breakdown. Inside you that gives no light but entirely consumes? Have you never endured a star like a white dwarf Her poem “Lo inefable” (“The Ineffable”) struck me: She’d published her first collection at 21, and was praised by critics of the time (for her beauty as much as for her work). Paging through one anthology I found the work of Delmira Agustini, shot by her estranged husband (who then turned the pistol on himself) in a hotel room in Montevideo, Uruguay in 1914. As I researched Odio, I was shocked to discover many other talented female poets who’d suffered similar fates. I ordered anthologies of Latin-American poetry and source books of Spanish-American women writers. As a poet myself, I felt desperate to know this brilliant, neglected woman - and how she’d come to that tragic end.īack home in Brooklyn, I obsessively Googled. There were only a few examples of her work on the Internet, despite an impressive publication record. The book I’d just been reading was making its English language debut, the first volume of a 456-page epic that Odio had completed in 1957. Born in 1919, Odio was “the mother of Costa Rican poetry in the twentieth century.” But her work never saw publication in her home country until after she’d died, alone and undiscovered for days, in Mexico City at age 54. However, her biography told a different story. A quick search on my phone revealed a stunning, movie star face: long dark hair framing a high forehead, eyebrows like black wings above fierce, luminous eyes.
I looked at the cover again: The Fire’s Journey by Eunice Odio. I’d walked my own painful path what knowledge could I share? I was especially attracted to the idea of descending into darkness for the benefit of others. Then, like a shaman, the deity embarked upon a perilous Underworld journey to bring back wisdom and healing to humanity.
The poet told how creation began with sacred speech from the mouth of a poet-god. The voice, a combination of Sappho, Dickinson, Whitman and Blake, felt both ancient and contemporary. As I paged through it, I read these words:įrom the skin to the light entering through dawn
I still wasn’t 100% myself, but just being in that crowd felt like a great victory.Īt the Tavern Books table, I picked up a poetry collection with a striking title: The Fire’s Journey.
But with the help of my husband, a good shrink and poetry, I was slowly recovering. Staying inside was also a problem because the TV, phone and microwave seemed to be emitting high-pitched whines. For two years, paralyzed by depression and anxiety, I was barely able to leave my apartment. But there I was at AWP, skittishly perusing tables at the book fair, under the garish lights of the Minneapolis Convention Center. A big literary conference is probably not the best place for a poet dealing with a mental breakdown.
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