Julia de Burgos

Julia de Burgos
1914-1953
(El País)
no copyright infringement intended

The photo was made on the border of Río Grande de Loíza, the river that inspired her first poem.

...mi niñez fue toda un poema en el río,
y un río en el poema de mis primeros sueños...

...my childhood was all a poem in the river, 

and a river in the poem of my first dreams...

She activated intensely for the independence of Puerto Rico, was an ardent feminist, and an advocate for the cause of African and Afro-Carribean writers. And above all she was an outstanding poet. Her sentimental life has been a havoc, and she died very young, at thirty nine years, in dramatic conditions: one day she left the house in Brooklyn where she was residing and disappeared. It was discovered after some time that she had collapsed on the street some place in the Spanish Harlem in Manhattan. Nobody there knew who she was as she didn't have any ID with her. They buried her in a pauper's cemetery, on Hart Island. Her remains were then moved to her beloved Puerto Rico.

• Río Grande de Loíza
• Yo misma fui mi ruta

(Una Vida Entre Libros)