Josefina de la Torre
From childhood, she received a broad artistic training : she studied music, singing, and poetry and began writing at a very young age. Her contact with the writers of the Generation of ’27 deepened in Madrid within the circle of the painter Néstor de la Torre, where she crossed paths with figures such as Federico García Lorca. Along with Ernestina de Champourcin, she was one of only two women included by Gerardo Diego in his famous 1934 anthology.
Her first book, *Versos y estampas* (1927), features a foreword by Pedro Salinas, who described her as a “girl-island,” highlighting the importance of landscape and island identity in her poetry. These qualities are also present in *Poemas de la isla* (1930). But Josefina de la Torre was a multifaceted artist. After the war, she was a singer, composer, theater, film, and radio actress, screenwriter, and novelist.
With *Marzo incompleto*, published in 1968 after a long hiatus, her poetry shifted toward a more intimate and e staff n voice. In *Medida del tiempo* (1989), she revisited the * report*, the passage of time, and the experiences of her generation. She died in Madrid in 2002 and was considered by the press to be “the last survivor of the Generation of ’27.”
I LOOK FOR MYSELF AND I DON'T meeting
I search for myself, but I cannot find me meeting.
I wander through the dark walls of my own being,
I question the silence and this clumsy emptiness
and I cannot make sense of the echo of my uncertainties.
I do not meeting myself.
And now I walk as if asleep in the darkness,
Feeling my way through the night from every corner.
And I could not be earth, nor essence, nor harmony,
which are fruit, sound, creation, the universe.
Not this discouraging, slow unraveling
that turns everything that is a wound into questions.
And I circle the deaf walls of myself
waiting for the moment to discover my shadow.