Song of the Simple Truth: The Complete Poems of Julia de Burgos. - book reviews

Progressive, The, Jan, 1998 by Anne-Marie Cusac

According to her translator, Julia de Burgos is the woman Puerto Ricans call "Puerto Rico's greatest poet." Burgos, 1914-1953, was also famously political: a feminist, a Puerto Rican independentista, and an outspoken opponent of Franco, Trujillo, and Somoza. But I had never heard of her until I saw the new English translation of her collected poems, Song of the Simple Truth: The Complete Poems of Julia de Burgos, compiled and translated by Jack Agueros (Curbstone Press).

When I encounter a female poet who says dangerous things and does so beautifully, I wonder why I have missed her. Are a woman's political poems less worthy than those of a Lorca or a Neruda?

A nearly ignored Spanish-speaking poet as fine as Julia de Burgos raises the question, what is American poetry? There's a twist here. For Burgos, U.S. citizenship was anything but a comfortable fit. She fought hard for Puerto Rican independence and she writes about U.S. colonialism in her poetry, as in "Rio Grande de Loiza":

Rio Grande de Loiza! . . . Great river.

Great Rood 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.

Burgos also is a poet of physical celebration. In "Nothing," the speaker's sexual exultation undoes her lover's nihilism:

If from the not being we come,

and to the not being we march,

nothing between nothing and nothing,

zero between zero and zero

and if between nothing and nothing

nothing can exist,

let's toast the beautiful non-being

of our bodies.

The active and happy female sexuality in these lines is characteristic of Burgos's poems. But in "Pentachrome," her deceptive playfulness leads to horror:

Today I want to be a man.

The boldest bandit

of the Seven of the City of Ecija.

The wildest

of those who flew on seven horses,

challenging everything with blunderbuss

and dagger.

Today I want to be a man.

Climb the adobe walls.

mock the convents, be all a Don Juan:

abduct Sor Carmen and Sor Josefina,

conquer them and rape Julia de Burgos.

The distinction between Julia de Burgos and Sor Carmen and Sor Josefina is important. The feminist is not "conquered," which suggests romantic capitulation. She has to be put down.

In "To Julia de Burgos," the author juxtaposes her polite public self with her radical private being:

. . . . you are the dressing and the essence

is me,

and the most profound abyss is spread

between us.

You are the cold doll of social lies,

and me, the virile starburst of the human

truth.

You are only the ponderous lady

very lady;

not me; I am life, strength, woman.

Read the fierce and playful poems of this "life, strength, woman." You won't regret it.

When I was a teenager in Appleton, Wisconsin, I knew no young people who used the words "gay" or "lesbian" to describe themselves. This is hardly surprising, since I knew no adults who identified themselves that way, either. Appleton is changing, as are many small towns around the country. At a recent Octoberfest on College Avenue, the city's main road, I found a tent representing Parents and Friends of Lesbians and Gays.

Young lesbians and gays, who are finding words to describe themselves and adults to admire, are fueling much of the change. Still, life is often difficult for lesbian and gay youth. If they come out while in junior high or high school, they often meet ridicule and even violence. Remaining closeted is not much comfort.