Julia de Burgos

Julia de Burgos was a Puerto Rican poet whose work engages themes of feminism and social justice. Since her death, she has been widely recognized as the contemporary foremother of Puerto Rico and of the Nuyorican poetry movement in New York. In her work, Burgos asserted her African lineage, advocating for anti-imperialism and Puerto Rican national identity and independence. A translation of her work into English by Jack Agüeros, titled Song of the Simple Truth: The Complete Poems of Julia de Burgos, was published in a bilingual edition (Northwestern University Press, 1995). 

The eldest of 13 children, Julia Constanza Burgos García was born in Carolina, Puerto Rico and grew up in the barrio of Santa Cruz. She taught at a school in the Barrio Cedro Arriba in Naranjito before moving to New York in 1940. She also lived briefly in Cuba, where she studied at the University of Havana. Returning to New York after two years in Cuba, Burgos served as the art and culture editor for the progressive newspaper Pueblos Hispanos. 

Her poetry collections include Poema en veinte surcos (approximately translated “Poem in twenty furrows,” Imprenta Venezuela,1938), Canción de la verdad sencilla (approximately translated “Song of the simple truth,” CasaBaldrich,1939), and the posthumously-published El mar y tú: otros poemas (approximately translated “The sea and you: other poems,” Puerto Rico Printing and Publishing Co., 1954). In “Río Grande de Loíza,” a poem named after the river in Puerto Rico, her relationship to Puerto Rico’s colonial past is evident in lines such as: “Río Grande de Loíza! ... Great river. Great flood of tears./The greatest of all our island’s tears,/save those greater that come from the eyes/of my soul for my enslaved people”

Her honors include awards from the Institute of Puerto Rican Literature and an honorary doctorate from the University of Puerto Rico. Burgos died in Harlem and her body was returned to Puerto Rico to be buried in the municipal cemetery at Carolina. She is the namesake of many schools, parks, and cultural centers, including the Julia de Burgos Cultural Arts Center in Cleveland, the Julia de Burgos Latino Cultural Center in East Harlem, and Julia de Burgos Park in Chicago.