Fluid Homes: Marjorie Agosín’s Poetic Traces of Belonging

Abstract

The collection of prose poems Notes from the Sea / Notas del mar (2024) by late poet and human rights activist Marjorie Agosín (translated by Suzanna Jill Levine) draws a lyrical image of the powerful forces of the oceans she experienced as her homes. Sprinkled with her family’s history of persecution, migration, and exile, Agosín poetically transcendences time and space through her admiration of the sea. This article aims at investigating how this collection of prose poems creates an image of fluid homes where the connections between human and nature are paramount to understanding home as a complex and multifaceted concept. The fluidity of the poetic voice underlines the transgression of boundaries between human and non-human to amplify the changes and consistencies of home, similar to the waves of the ocean creating ebb and flow. This article furthermore argues that through her fluid definition of home, a feminist perspective is created, aligning with prominent women writers of the Americas who radically reconfigured the concept of home in order to reject monolithic and stereotypical definition of what it means to belong.