I Am My Own Path

A definitive, bilingual selection of poetry, essays, and letters by one of Puerto Rico’s most beloved poets.

Julia de Burgos (1914–1953) is best known for her poetry, but she is also an important cultural figure famous for her commitment to social justice, feminist ideas, and the independence of Puerto Rico. Admirers cultivated her legacy to bring to light the real Julia de Burgos, the woman behind the public figure, which this remarkable collection further illuminates by supplying a complex portrait using her own powerful and imaginative words.

Beginning with a critical introduction to Burgos's life and work, Vanessa Pérez-Rosario then presents a selection of poems, essays, and letters, that offer a glimpse into this formidable talent and intellect. Burgos left Puerto Rico, spending the 1940s in both New York City and Havana, where she cultivated a new kind of identity refracted through her pathbreaking work as a poet and journalist. Both poetry and prose are alive with politically charged insights into the struggle of national liberation, literary creation, and being a woman in a patriarchal society. I Am My Own Path is essential reading for anyone interested in Puerto Rican literature and culture as well as a foundational text of Latinx and Chicanx literature and culture in the United States.