USPS Salutes Poet Julia de Burgos on Stamp

On the eve of National Hispanic Heritage Month, USPS today recognizes poet Julia de Burgos in San Juan, PR, honoring her with a 44-cent stamp. An award-winning writer and journalist, de Burgos joins the Postal Service’s Literary Arts series, and the company of 75 other Hispanic-themed stamps.

Northeast Area Vice President Jordan Small noted de Burgos was “a revolutionary writer, thinker and activist, “ who wrote more than 200 poems probing issues of love, feminism and political and personal freedom. “Her groundbreaking works urged women, minorities and the poor to defy social conventions and find their own true selves,” he said.

Julia Constanza Burgos García was born Feb. 17, 1914, in the town of Carolina, PR. For several years, she held a series of teaching and journalism jobs while also publishing poems in journals and newspapers. She graduated from the University of Puerto Rico in 1933 with a 2-year teaching degree.

De Burgos’ first collection, Exact Poems to Myself, consists of poems she wrote in 1934-35. One of the poems written during this early period — “Río Grande de Loíza,” a love song to the river of her childhood — also became her most famous.

¡Río Grande de Loiza!… My wellspring, my river
since the maternal petal lifted me to the world;
my pale desires came down in you from the craggy hills
to find new furrows;
and my childhood was all a poem in the river,
and a river in the poem of my first dreams.

Her other poems addressed political themes such as equality and social justice.

De Burgos left Puerto Rico in 1940 for New York City, but later moved to Cuba, where she stayed until 1942. She also served as an editor for “Pueblos Hispanos,” a New York-based Spanish-language newspaper that promoted many progressive social and political causes, including Puerto Rican independence. She is considered one of Puerto Rico’s most distinctive literary voices and is read throughout Latin America.

Before her death in 1953, she wrote poems about the loneliness and isolation experienced by those who leave their native homeland.

How to Order the First-Day-of-Issue Postmark:

Customers have 60 days to obtain the first-day-of-issue postmark by mail. They may purchase new stamps at a local Post Office, at The Postal Store website at www.usps.com/shop, or by calling 800-STAMP-24. They should affix the stamps to envelopes of their choice, address the envelopes (to themselves or others), and place them in larger envelopes addressed to:

Julia de Burgos Stamp
Stamp Distribution
585 Ave. RD Roosevelt OFC
San Juan, PR 00936-9311

After applying the first-day-of-issue postmark, the Postal Service will return the envelopes through the mail. There is no charge for the postmark. All orders must be postmarked by November 15, 2010.