Book contents
- Latinx Literature in Transition, 1848–1992
- Latinx literature in transition
- Latinx Literature in Transition, 1848–1992
- Copyright page
- Dedication
- Contents
- Figures
- Contributors
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction
- Part I Space
- Part II Being
- Part III Time
- Part IV Form
- Chapter 13 Entre Balas y Rugidos
- Chapter 14 Modernism’s Workshops
- Chapter 15 Lyrical Mobilities
- Chapter 16 Bullets, Guns, and Tattoos
- Part V Labor
- Bibliography
- Index
- References
Chapter 15 - Lyrical Mobilities
William Carlos Williams and Julia de Burgos in the Latinx Grain
from Part IV - Form
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 10 April 2025
Book contents
- Latinx Literature in Transition, 1848–1992
- Latinx literature in transition
- Latinx Literature in Transition, 1848–1992
- Copyright page
- Dedication
- Contents
- Figures
- Contributors
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction
- Part I Space
- Part II Being
- Part III Time
- Part IV Form
- Chapter 13 Entre Balas y Rugidos
- Chapter 14 Modernism’s Workshops
- Chapter 15 Lyrical Mobilities
- Chapter 16 Bullets, Guns, and Tattoos
- Part V Labor
- Bibliography
- Index
- References
Summary
This chapter imagines potential and as yet unexplored rapprochements between William Carlos Williams (1883–1963) and Julia de Burgos (1914–53), two contemporaneous writers on the brink of Latinx identification, as it is currently conceived. Observing their generically and linguistically diverse writing practices – marked by distinct introspections about Puerto Rican, Caribbean, pan-Hispanic, Anglo-American, and European identities – I open a discussion of the authors’ experiences of everyday spaces (the city street, the hospital ward, the intergenerational home). What I call “lyrical mobilities” constitutes the process of imagining Williams’s and de Burgos’s movements through hemispheric histories as well as geographic and linguistic spaces. It is also a critical attempt to read these two canonical authors in terms of the spaces they had in common, which, in turn, helps extend our understanding of Latinx lives across disciplines that have contained Williams and de Burgos within discrete silos.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Latinx Literature in Transition, 1848–1992 , pp. 260 - 276Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2025
References
Works Cited
Alvarado, Li Yun. “Ambivalence and the Empire City: Julia de Burgos’s New York.” Arizona Quarterly, vol. 71, no. 1, 2015, pp. 53–81.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Briggs, Laura. Reproducing Empire: Race, Sex, Science, and US Imperialism in Puerto Rico. U of California P, 2002.Google Scholar
Burgos, Julia de. Diario, edited by Masdeu, Edgar Martínez. Libros de la Iguana, 2014.Google Scholar
Cohen, Milton A. “Williams and Politics,” The Cambridge Companion to William Carlos Williams, edited by McGowan, Christopher. Cambridge UP, 2016, pp. 66–81.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Colón, David A. “Making it Nuevo: Latina/o Modernist Poetics Remake High Euro-American Modernism.” The Cambridge History of Latina/o American Literature, edited by González, John Morán and Lomas, Laura. Cambridge UP, 2018, pp. 353–370.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Coronado, Raúl. “Historicizing Nineteenth-Century Latina/o Textuality.” The Latino Nineteenth Century: Archival Encounters in American Literary History, edited by Lazo, Rodrigo and Alemán, Jesse. New York UP, 2016, pp. 49–70.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cutler, John Alba. “Latinx Modernism and the Spirit of Latinoamericanismo.” American Literary History, vol. 33, no. 3, 2021, pp. 571–587.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Feinsod, Harris. “Between Dissidence and Good Neighbor Diplomacy: Reading Julia de Burgos with the FBI.” CENTRO Journal, vol. 26, no. 2, 2014, pp. 98–127.Google Scholar
Feinsod, Harris. The Poetry of the Americas: From Good Neighbors to Countercultures. Oxford UP, 2017.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gelpí, Juan G. “El sujeto nómada en la poesía de Julia de Burgos.” Revista de Creitica Literaria Latinoamericana, vol. 23, no. 45, 1997, pp. 247–260.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gruesz, Kirsten Silva. “What Was Latino Literature?” PMLA, vol. 127, no. 2, 2012, pp. 335–341.Google Scholar
Kutzinski, Vera. Against the American Grain: Myth and History in William Carlos Williams, Jay Wright, and Nicolás Guillén. Johns Hopkins UP, 1987.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
La Fountain-Stokes, Lawrence. Queer Ricans: Cultures and Sexualities in the Diaspora. U of Minnesota P, 2009.Google Scholar
Marzán, Julio. “Reading Carlos: Baroque as Straight Ahead.” The Cambridge Companion to William Carlos Williams, edited by McGowan, Christopher. Cambridge UP, 2016, pp. 161–175.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Marzán, Julio. The Spanish American Roots of William Carlos Williams. U of Texas P, 1994.Google Scholar
Mayo Santana, Raúl, Babionet, Silvia E., and Román Franco, Ángel A.. Historia de la medicina tropical en Puerto Rico en el siglo XX. Ediciones Laberinto, 2022.Google Scholar
Montero, Óscar. “La prosa neoyorquina de Julia de Burgos: ‘la cosa latina’ en ‘mi segunda casa.’” Ciberletras, vol. 20, 2008, pp. 145–171.Google Scholar
Noel, Urayoán. “For a Caribbean American Graininess: William Carlos Williams, Translator.” Small Axe, vol. 42, 2013, pp. 138–150.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pérez-Rosario, Vanessa. Becoming Julia de Burgos: The Making of a Puerto Rican Icon. U of Illinois P, 2014.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ramos, Peter. “Cultural Identity, Translation, and William Carlos Williams.” MELUS, vol. 38, no. 2, 2013, pp. 89–110.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Williams, William Carlos. The Autobiography of William Carlos Williams. New Directions, 1948.Google Scholar
Williams, William Carlos. By Word of Mouth: Poems from the Spanish, 1916–1959, edited by Cohen, Jonathan. New Directions, 2011.Google Scholar
Williams, William Carlos. The Dog and the Fever: A Perambulatory Novella, edited by Cohen, Jonathan. Wesleyan UP, 2018.Google Scholar
Williams, William Carlos. Selected Essays of William Carlos Williams. Random House, 1954.Google Scholar
Williams, William Carlos. Yes, Mrs. Williams: A Personal Record of My Mother. McDowell Obolenski, 1959.Google Scholar
Williams, William Carlos. Yes, Mrs. Williams: A Personal Record of My Mother. Typescript of early draft, “Part I,” “Part II,” and “Part III.” YCAL MSS 116, Box 46, Folder 1153. Accessed with permission from Williams Carlos Williams Papers, Yale Collection of American Literature, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library.Google Scholar
Witemeyer, Hugh, editor. Pound/Williams: Selected Letters of Ezra Pound and William Carlos Williams. New Directions, 1996.Google Scholar