Literary Birthday – 7 April – Gabriela Mistral

Gabriela Mistral was born  7 April 1889, and died 10 January 1957.

Five Quotes

1. I write poetry because I can’t disobey the impulse; it would be like blocking a spring that surges up in my throat. For a long time I’ve been the servant of the song that comes, that appears and can’t be buried away.
2. Love that stammers, that stutters, is apt to be the love that loves best.
3. You shall create beauty not to excite the senses but to give sustenance to the soul.
4. Love beauty; it is the shadow of God on the universe.
5. We are guilty of many errors and many faults, but our worst crime is abandoning the children, neglecting the fountain of life. Many of the things we need can wait. The child cannot. Right now is the time his bones are being formed, his blood is being made, and his senses are being developed. To him we cannot answer ‘Tomorrow’. His name is today.

Gabriela Mistral was the pseudonym of Lucila Godoy Alcayaga, a Chilean poet-diplomat, educator and feminist. She is the only Latin American woman to receive the Nobel Prize in Literature. Her works can be read in Gabriela Mistral: A Reader.

by Amanda Patterson

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