Poet of the Day: Julia de Burgos

[primeideal]

 Julia de Burgos (1914-1953) was a Puerto Rican poet and activist. She served as Secretary-General of the Daughters of Freedom, the women's branch of the Puerto Rico Nationalist Party.

I first read "A Julia de Burgos" ("To Julia de Burgos") in Spanish, and probably can't appreciate the whole depth of it. Still, lines like "un uno en la cifra" (a one in the digit?) appeal to my love of numbers, and the poem builds to a powerful conclusion. Here's the Spanish original, and Jack Agüeros' English translation. (There are a couple different versions floating around on the internet--another translation omits the second half of the poem, and various copies of the original don't agree on where the line breaks go.)