Julia de Burgos | |
|---|---|
 de Burgos in the early 1950s | |
| Born | Julia Constancia Burgos García (1914-02-17)February 17, 1914 |
| Died | July 6, 1953(1953-07-06) (aged 39) |
| Occupation | Poet, activist |
| Nationality | Puerto Rican |
| Period | 20th century |
| Genre | Lyric poetry, lament |
| Literary movement | Puerto Rican Independence |
| Notable works | El Rio Grande de Loiza;Yo misma fui mi ruta;A Julia De Burgos |
Julia Constanza Burgos García (February 17, 1914 – July 6, 1953), known asJulia de Burgos, was aPuerto Rican poet, journalist,Puerto Rican independence advocate, and teacher.[1] As an advocate ofPuerto Rican independence, she served as Secretary General of the Daughters of Freedom, the women's branch of thePuerto Rican Nationalist Party.[2] She was also acivil rightsactivist for women and African andAfro-Caribbean writers.
Julia de Burgos was born Julia Constanza Burgos García to Francisco Burgos Hans, a farmer, and Paula García de Burgos.[3] Her father was a member of thePuerto Rico National Guard and had a farm near the town ofCarolina, Puerto Rico, where she was born. The family later moved to thebarrio ofSanta Cruz of the same city. She was the oldest of thirteen children. Six of her younger siblings died of malnutrition.[2]
After Burgos graduated from Muñoz Rivera Primary School in 1928, her family moved toRio Piedras, where she was awarded a scholarship to attendUniversity High School.[2] In 1931, she enrolled inUniversity of Puerto Rico, Rio Piedras Campus to become a teacher.
In 1933, at the age of 19, Burgos graduated from theUniversity of Puerto Rico with a degree in teaching. She became a teacher and taught at Feijoo Elementary School in BarrioCedro Arriba ofNaranjito, Puerto Rico. She worked as a writer for a children's program under Puerto Rico's Department of Public Instruction onpublic radio, but was reportedly fired for her political beliefs.[2] Among her early influences wereLuis Lloréns Torres,Mercedes Negrón Muñoz,Rafael Alberti andPablo Neruda. According to Burgos, "My childhood was all a poem in the river, and a river in the poem of my first dreams."[2] Her first work wasRío Grande de Loíza.[2]
In 1934, Burgos married Ruben Rodriguez Beauchamp and ended her teaching career. In 1936, she became a member of thePuerto Rican Nationalist Party (Partido Nacionalista de Puerto Rico), led byPedro Albizu Campos. She was elected to the position of Secretary General of the Daughters of Freedom, the women's branch of the party.[2] She divorced her husband in 1937.
| External audio | |
|---|---|
 "Río Grande de Loíza" recited onYouTube |
By the early 1930s, Burgos had published her work in journals and newspapers. At the intersection of her identity as an Afro-Latina woman in a conservative culture, her work discusses feminism, rebellion, love, social justice, identity, resistance, colonialism, and much more.[4] She published two collections of poetry,Poema en 20 surcos (1938) andCanción de la verdad sencilla (1939) in her lifetime. Her third collection,El mar y tú: otros poemas (1954) was edited and published after her death by her sister, Consuelo Burgos.[5] For her first two books, she traveled around the island promoting her work by giving book readings. Her third book was publishedposthumously in 1954. Burgos' lyrical poems are a combination of the intimate, the land and the social struggle of the oppressed. Many critics assert that her poetry anticipated the work offeminist writers and poets as well as that of otherHispanic authors.[6] In one of her poems, she writes: "I am life, strength, woman."[7] Burgos received awards and recognition for her work and was celebrated by poets includingPablo Neruda, whom she met in Cuba, and stated that her calling was to be one of the greatest poet of the Americas.[3]
Among Burgos' works are:
Later in life, Burgos became romantically involved with Dr.Juan Isidro Jimenes Grullón, aDominican physician. According to Grullón, many of her poems during that time were inspired by the love that she felt for him.[2] In 1940, Burgos and Jimenes Grullón traveled first to Cuba, where she briefly attended theUniversity of Havana,[3] and then later to New York City, where she worked as a journalist forPueblos Hispanos, a progressive newspaper.
Shortly after their arrival in Cuba, Burgos' relationship with Jimenes Grullón became strained.[3] After trying to save her relationship, she instead left and returned once again to New York in 1942, however this time alone, where she took menial jobs to support herself. In 1944, she married Armando Marín, a musician fromVieques. In 1947, the marriage also ended in divorce, lapsing Burgos into further depression andalcoholism.
It has to be from here,
right this instance,
my cry into the world.
My cry that is no more mine,
but hers and his forever,
the comrades of my silence,
the phantoms of my grave.
In February 1953, Burgos wrote one of her last poems, "Farewell inWelfare Island."[3][10] It was written during her last hospitalization and is believed by her peers to be one of the only poems she wrote in English. In the poem she foreshadows her death and reveals an ever darker concept of life.[11]
On June 28, 1953, Burgos left the home of a relative inBrooklyn, where she had been residing.[citation needed] She disappeared without leaving a clue as to where she went.[11]
It was later discovered that in the early morning hours of July 5, 1953, she had collapsed on a sidewalk in theSpanish Harlem section ofManhattan, and she died ofpneumonia at a hospital inHarlem shortly after midnight on July 6, 1953, at the age of 39. Since no one claimed her body and she had no identification on her, the city gave her a pauper's burial onHart Island, the city's onlypotter's field.[11]
Eventually, some of her friends and relatives were able to trace her, find her grave, and claim her body. A committee was organized in Puerto Rico, presided over by Dr.Margot Arce de Vázquez, to have her remains transferred to the island. Burgos's remains arrived on September 6, 1953, and funeral services for her were held at thePuerto Rican Atheneum. She was given a hero's burial at the Municipal Cemetery of Carolina. A monument was later built at her burial site by the City ofCarolina.[12]
In 1986, the Spanish Department of the University of Puerto Rico posthumously honored Burgos by granting her a doctorate in Human Arts and Letters.[13]
Cities that have honored Burgos include:
The Puerto Rican sculptorTomás Batista sculpted a bust of de Burgos in the Julia de Burgos Park in Carolina.Isabel Cuchí Coll published a book about de Burgos titledDos Poetisas de América:Clara Lair y Julia de Burgos. Puerto Rican poetGiannina Braschi, who was born the year of de Burgos' death, pays homage to her poetry and legend in theSpanglish novelYo-Yo Boing![21]
AtYale University, the Latino Cultural Center is named in her honor,La Casa Cultural Julia de Burgos.
A documentary about the life of Burgos was made in 2002 titled "Julia, Toda en mi ..." (Julia, All in me ...) directed and produced byIvonne Belén. Anotherbiopic about her life,"Vida y poesía de Julia de Burgos," was filmed and released in Puerto Rico in 1978.
InNew York City, the Julia de Burgos Cultural Center, on106th Street and Lexington Avenue, is named after her.[16]
On September 14, 2010, in a ceremony held inSan Juan, theUnited States Postal Service honored Burgos' life and literary work with the issuance of a first classpostage stamp, the 26th release in the postal system'sLiterary Arts series. The stamp's portrait was created byToronto-based artist Jody Hewgill.[17][22]
In 2011, Burgos was inducted into theNew York Writers Hall of Fame.
There is a plaque, located at the monument to theJayuya Uprising participants inMayagüez, Puerto Rico, honoring the women of the Puerto Rican Nationalist Party. Burgos' name is on the sixth line of the third plate.
On May 29, 2014, The Legislative Assembly of Puerto Rico honored 12 illustrious women with plaques in the "La Plaza en Honor a la Mujer Puertorriqueña" (Plaza in Honor of Puerto Rican Women) in San Juan. According to the plaques each of the 12 women, who by virtue of their merits and legacies, stand out in the history of Puerto Rico. Burgos was among the 12 who were honored.[23]
In September 2017, artist-activistMolly Crabapple (herself of Puerto Rican descent) disbursed the profits of the sales of her portrait of de Burgos to the Puerto RicoHurricane Maria Recovery Fund. Thegiclée 17″ x 22″ print is captioned with one of the poet's most famous lines: "En todo me lo juego a ser lo que soy yo/I gamble everything to be what I am."[24]
In 2018, theNew York Times published a belated obituary for her as part of their Overlooked No More series.[25]
The third movement ofLeonard Bernstein'sSongfest: A Cycle of American Poems for Six Singers and Orchestra is a setting of Burgos' poem "A Julia de Burgos". Jack Gottlieb wrote, "In angry words (sung in Spanish) she expresses her defiance of the dual role she plays as a conventional woman and as a liberated woman-poet. (Her poem antedates by two decades thewomen's liberation movement.) The music is sharply rhythmic, and might well be underscoring for a bullfight."
ComposerAwilda Villarini set de Burgos' work to music in her composition "Two Love Songs."[26]
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