For Julia de Burgos
In Carolina
before the housing developments
when the river would drown people
in a breeze
and amanú was no extraordinary herb.
Mayra Santos-Febres is an award-winning poet, novelist, essayist, and scholar. She has published over twenty books, including Urban Oracles; Sirena Selena; Any Wednesday, I’m Yours; Our Lady of the Night; and Boat People. She holds a PhD in Literature from Cornell University and currently teaches at the University of Puerto Rico, where she also heads the Afro-Diasporic and Race Studies Program. Her most recent publication is La otra Julia (The Other Julia), a novel that explores the connections between the author and Julia de Burgos, one of Puerto Rico’s most important poets of the 20th century