Mujer y escritura:construcción de una subjetividad dinámica en cóncava mujer y del dolor y las alas

The title of Juana Castro’s poetry book publshed in 1978, Cóncava mujer — Concave woman — expresses the hollow nature of the social female subject. From Juana Castro’s point of view, this female social concavity is only allowed to transformed itself into its opposite, the convex women which clearly represents the reproductive role of the female body. These two extreme roles assigned to women, hollowness or maternity, are the poetic paradigms for Juana Castro’s two poetry books analised in this article. As if we were presented with the two sides of a coin, Cóncava mujer and Del dolor y las alas – On anguish and wings--(1982) reflect the author´s concious realisation of the above-mentioned female duality as a defined and percieved subject by male society. Each poetry book, however, respond to two different personal moments, and each result in two different ways of conceiving poetic language. On one hand, the poetic subject of Cóncava mujer emerges with all its force as a feminist voice whose goal is the attack of all aspects of the patriarchal society as the cause of the female concavity. On the other hand, in Del dolor y las alas the poetic voice unfolds her motherhood as both loss and creation: the death of Juana Castro’s son makes the poetic subject incomplete, and therefore a concave one; whereas the poetic discourse appears as the perfect way to occupy the empty space left by the son’s death.

Mujer y poesía:la inscripción de la subjetividad femenina y la conciencia creativa del lenguaje poético

This article explores the place of Spanish women poets within the Spanish cultural space at the end of the 20th century. In clear opposition to the arguments presented by the editors and many of the articles included in this volume, Raquel Medina sees in the most recent poetry written by women an evolution towards a new and independent female poetic voice which clearly fights against the supremacy of male poetic voices and their manipulative poetic language. No longer stealing the male poetic word is necessary for the last generation of Spanish women poets. On the contrary, these women poets create their own language, their own poetic universe, and demolish a long tradition of male poetry which situated the female subject as a dead object of male poetry.

Donde impere el olvido:poesía y Alzheimer en Los cuerpos oscuros de Juana Castro

La terrible invalidez física y mental a la que se enfrentan en sus últimos años, meses y días los enfermos de Alzheimer, se refleja, como en un espejo, en el vacío y la impotencia de los otros, aquellos que conviven con ellos. Los unos no se acuerdan de los otros, pero los otros pierden su identidad si los unos no les recuerdan, no les reconocen. Es el laberinto de la memoria y la desmemoria. El propósito de este artículo es analizar la representación que del Alzheimer se hace en el poemario de Juana Castro Los cuerpos oscuros (2005) tanto a nivel de contenido como a nivel del empleo del lenguaje poético. En primer lugar se hace un recorrido sobre cómo se ha representado la demencia en la esfera cultural y lo que de ella encontramos en los discursos actuales sobre el Alzheimer. Desde lo aportado por los estudios del envejecimiento y, sobre todo, por los estudios de la demencia, se establecen las cuestiones de identidad y de subjetividad que se plantean con la polifonía de voces que nos ofrece el poemario. Por último se analiza la relación entre la memoria semántica y el lenguaje metafórico.