Circe Maia
Circe Maia, (born June 29, 1932, in Montevideo), is a Uruguayan poet, essayist, translator, and teacher. Biography Circe Maia was born in Montevideo, Uruguay, in 1932. Her parents were María Magdalena Rodríguez and the notary Julio Maia, both originally from the north of Uruguay. Her father published her first book of poetry (Plumitas, 1944) when she was just 12 years old. The sudden death of her mother when she was 19 left a somber mark on Maia's first book of mature poetry which was published when she was 25 (En el tiempo, 1958). She married Ariel Ferreira, a medical doctor, in 1957. In 1962 they moved permanently to Tacuarembó in the north of Uruguay with their first two children. She studied philosophy in the Instituto de Profesores Artigas and also at the Facultad de Humanidades y Ciencias of the Universidad de la República, both in Montevideo. She began teaching philosophy at a Tacuarembó high school and at the Instituto de Formación Docente de Tacuarembó, the local teachers' college. She was a founding member of a students' union (Centro de Estudiantes del Instituto de Profesores Artigas) and an active member of the Socialist Party of Uruguay. The years of the civil-military dictatorship of Uruguay were difficult for Circe Maia and her family. At 3 a.m. one morning in 1972, police raided their home to arrest both Ariel and Circe. However Circe was allowed to remain because she was caring for their four-day-old daughter. Her husband was imprisoned for two years for being associated with the Tupamaros National Liberation Movement. In 1973 the government dismissed her from her teaching position at the high school. However, she began to teach English and French language classes privately. In 1982 her 18-year-old son was killed in an automobile accident. This tragedy combined with the pressures of the dictatorship caused her to suspend poetry writing. With the return of democracy in 1985, her position at the high school was restored, and in 1987 she published two books, Destrucciones, a small book of bitter prose, and Un viaje a Salto, a narrative about an incident during her husband's imprisonment. Her return to poetry was marked by the publication of Superficies (1990), which was followed by other poetry books and her translations from English, Greek, and other languages. For the reading public, her most important publication was the recompilation of poetry from her previous nine books appearing as Circe Maia: obra poética (2007 and 2010), amounting to over 400 pages. Circe Main taught philosophy in high school until her retirement in 2001, but she continued to teach English in a private institute and direct local theater productions, as well as continuing her work as a poet, essayist, and translator. Poetry In her first book as an adult, En el tiempo (1958) Circe Maia wrote that she favored a poetic language that was "direct, sober, and open, that was not different in tone from conversation, but was a conversation with greater quality, greater intensity.... The mission of this language