This essay compares the poetics of two canonical Latin American writers. Both enjoyed fame and consecration during their lifetime in their respective countries. Lisboa in Brazil and Pizarnik in Argentina, authored thin and unforgettable volumes of poetry. Both came from loving families and enjoyed iconic status in literary circles and yet, Lisboa constructed a poetics of joy, pride and beauty to be found in all things Brazilian as well as the phenomena touched by the self conceived as light and love; while Pizarnik's brave an incisive struggle with language and the self produced one cutting and bleeding revelation after another at the expense of self, consciousness and self-love. Both poets sought to live in the house of language. But while Lisboa worked to build her dwelling place, Pizarnik could not but seek to build by paradoxically dismantling the architecture of language. Close readings of key poems sustain the study of the poetics of each poet.