In the run up to International Women’s Day (8 March) we’ll be paying tribute to our fallen and missing female colleagues in Mexico.

Today, we remember poet and women’s rights activist Susana Chavez Castillo, who was murdered in January 2011.

Susana Chávez Castillo was a prominent poet who led protests against the unsolved killings of women raped and killed in Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua state, on the border with the United States, since the 1990s. She was also active in organisations supporting the families and friends of the deceased women, including the group Return Our Daughters (Nuestras Hijas de Regreso a Casa). Chávez coined and popularised the slogan “Not one more death” (‘Ni una muerte más’) which was used at the protests, and took part in poetry readings that she dedicated to murdered women. You can read her poem ‘Sangre Nuestra’ (Our blood) below.

Chávez was herself murdered and mutilated in Ciudad Juárez in early January 2011. Her body was found strangled with a bag over her head and her left hand cut off in the city centre on 6 January but was only identified five days later.

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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.

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.