Literary Granny Gabriela Mistral: Change agent, Poet, Nobel Prize Winner
“Love that stammers, that stutters, is apt to be the love that loves best.”
― Gabriela Mistral
Does your writing ever stammer or stutter? My guess is for most of us who describe ourselves as writers, there have been moments of some level of discouragement to find the words, the right words, to get the words on the page.
When today’s Literary Granny, Gabriela Mistral, speaks of love - I can also relate what she says to writing. Let’s try that on:
“A writing process that sometimes stammers, that stutters, is apt to be the writing that readers loves best.”
Yesterday our Literary Granny Frances Harper Walker suggested we lead a true and nobel life which will then be our way to writing the most important poetry of all. This thought inspires me. If I allow myself the space to stammer and stutter as I write anything - and continue to write, anyway, I recognize what is coming through my initial messiness is bound to be some really exceptional stuff rather than cliché or run-of-the-mill or what one might expect of me.
I am passionate about sharing women’s voices. I am passionate for women to come together in community – to find heroines as well as heros to discover how much more we have in common than those ways we are different. When our writing stammers and stutters and finds its way - especially in community - lives are forever changed.
Gabriela Mistral was such a change maker.
She was not born Gabriela Mistral, she was born Lucila Godoy y Alcayaga. She was a Chilean poet whose early life was laced with tragedy and early adult life was scratched deeply due to suicides of those she loved dearly.In 1945 she won the Nobel Prize in Poetry stating “for her lyric poetry which, inspired by powerful emotions, has made her name a symbol of the idealistic aspirations of the entire Latin American world.”
Besides being the foremost Latin American poet of her time, Gabriela was an intellectual, an educator and consistently defending the rights of those who had little – if any – power. In 1906 she wrote a hard-hitting article called "La instrucción de la mujer" – The Education of Women. She had been denied the right to study and wanted make sure this restriction was lifted forever.
She was a change agent repeatedly in her life, as evidenced by her Nobel prize. She worked on her career as an educator and writer simultaneously, working on social justice and communicating her vision via poetry and has been a champion for all people ever since.
Questions for Writing and Contemplation:
In what ways are you currently a change maker?
Would you like to be more of a change maker? What inspires you to be a change maker?
Sentence starters
I influence others when…
I influence others when I write…
I would like to increase my influence in….
When I think of myself as a champion of people, what comes up for me is….
Reflection at the End of the Day
Today I influenced..
Today I wish I had acted upon…
Today I wrote…
And tomorrow I aim to write more….
Tomorrow I will…..
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This blog post is a part of April's Blogging from A to Z Challenge. Visit here daily in April to be inspired by literary grannies across time.
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Julie Jordan Scott inspires people to experience artistic rebirth via her programs, playshops, books, performances and simply being herself out in the world. She is a writer, creative life coach, speaker, performance poet, Mommy-extraordinaire and mixed-media artist whose Writing Camps and Writing Playgrounds permanently transform people's creative lives. Watch for the announcement of new programs coming in Spring, 2015 and beyond. 
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