Julia de Burgos and Edgar Allen Poe

 JULIA AND EDGAR

   

Julia and Edgar's Joint 

Edgar Allan Poe[i] and Julia de Burgos[ii] were both poets. Poe was an American White Male and de Burgos was a Black Puerto Rican female.  Both expanded the boundaries of their societies – he by inventing the detective story and exploring the macabre, she by her defiant insistence on Puerto Rican independence and glorification of Black people.  They were also both mentally ill and struggled with addiction throughout their lives.  They both died destitute on the streets.  At Julia and Edgar's Joint you don't have to be alone with your illness.  You don't have to suffer as they did.  We are here for you.  

Julia de Burgos (February 17, 1914 – July 6, 1953) was a Puerto Rican woman who was actively involved in the independence movement of Puerto Rico, and was also active in the anti-Trujillo movement in the Dominican Republic and independence movements throughout the Caribbean.  You can find more information about her here  and here.  One of her greatest poems is Yo Misma Fui Mi Ruta (I Was My Own Path)  or I myself was my route

"I wanted to be as men wanted
that I was: an attempt at life;
a game of hide and seek with my being.
But I was made of presents
and my feet, flat on the promising land
they could not resist walking backwards,
and they kept on, on,
mocking the ashes
to reach the kiss of the new paths..."

Edgar Allan Poe was one of the greatest American poets, if not the greatest. He not only wrote masterfully crafted verse such as The Raven, Anabelle Lee, but he is also considered the originator of the detective story and wrote eerie and macabre stories such as the Cask of Amontillado, The Tell-Tale Heart and others. Although The Raven is considered his greatest work, here are some lines from one of his lesser known poems, The Bells    

"...Hear the sledges with the bells-
                  Silver bells!
  What a world of merriment their melody foretells!
          How they tinkle, tinkle, tinkle,
              In the icy air of night!
          While the stars that oversprinkle
          All the heavens, seem to twinkle
            With a crystalline delight;
                Keeping time, time, time,
            In a sort of Runic rhyme,
  To the tintinnabulation that so musically wells
            From the bells, bells, bells, bells,
                  Bells, bells, bells-
  From the jingling and the tinkling of the bells."

[i] https://poets.org/poet/edgar-allan-poe

[ii] https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/julia-de-burgos#tab-related