Sor Juana de la Cruz (by Jenny Factor)

Now a note from the 17th Century, when bold, brilliant Sor Juana de la Cruz (1648-1695) entered a convent in order to find time and space to read and write.

Before Mexican Independence, before Women's Liberation, before any of that...Sister Juana found patronage in her brilliant European visitors (the viceroy and vicereine from Spain), spoke her mind (so frankly she courted trouble with theological authorities), and wrote reams and reams of treatises and poems. She ultimately died of the plague while tending to other sufferers.

Here is an exerpt from her poem, "I approach and I withdraw" by an unknown translator:

I approach, and I withdraw:
who but I could find
absence in the eyes,
presence in what's far?...

So caring is my love
that my present distress
minds hard-heartedness less
than the thought of its loss.

This poem reminds me slantwise of Catullus' "Odi et Amo" (a.k.a. "I hate and I love"). You can read all her work online here.

-J.F.