Susana Chávez Castillo, a prominent poet and women’s rights advocate, was found murdered in the border town of Ciudad Juárez on 6 January 2011. Her body found strangled, with one of her hands cut off, was only identified five days later. Chávez (born 5 November 1974) had been highly vocal in calling for justice for the hundreds of women killed in the Juárez area since the early 1990s, both as an activist and through her writings; in particular taking part in numerous poetry readings which she dedicated to the murdered women. Her poem Sangre Nuestra (‘Our Blood’) was written from the perspective of a victim:
SANGRE NUESTRA
Sangre mía,
de alba,
de luna partida,
del silencio.
de roca muerta,
de mujer en cama,
saltando al vacío,
Abierta a la locura.
Sangre clara y definida,
fértil y semilla,
Sangre incomprensible gira,
Sangre liberación de sí misma,
Sangre río de mis cantos,
Mar de mis abismos.
Sangre instante donde nazco adolorida,
Nutrida de mi última presencia.
OUR BLOOD
Blood of my own,
blood of sunrise,
blood of a broken moon,
blood of silence,
of dead rock,
of a woman in bed
jumping into nothingness,
Open to the madness.
Blood clear and definite,
fertile seed,
Blood the unbelievable journey,
Blood as its own liberation,
Blood, river of my songs,
Sea of my abyss.
Blood, painful moment of my birth,
Nourished by my last appearance.
Thank you Pen International
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PEN International promotes literature and freedom of expression. Founded in 1921, our global community of writers now spans more than 100 countries. PEN International is a non-political organisation which holds Special Consultative Status at the UN and Associate Status at UNESCO.
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