According to a press release from the U.S. Postal Service dated 12/09 (don’t know if the reason this is coming to my attention now is the fault of Rican time or USPS time), later this month Puerto Rican poet Julia de Burgos will have a U.S. postage stamp released in her honor.

With this 26th stamp in the Literary Arts series, the U.S Postal Service honors Julia de Burgos, one of Puerto Rico’s most celebrated poets. The stamp goes on sale in September. A revolutionary writer, thinker, and activist, de Burgos wrote more than 200 poems that probe issues of love, feminism, and political and personal freedom. Her groundbreaking works combine the intimate with the universal. They speak powerfully to women, minorities, the poor, and the dispossessed, urging them to defy constricting social conventions and find their own true selves. The stamp features a portrait of de Burgos created by artist Jody Hewgill.

What the press release fails to state is that the political freedom de Burgos wrote about was the freedom of Puerto Rico from the United States.

While I think it is wonderful that de Burgos be recognized as the wonderful poet and artist that she was so that more people become familiar with her body of work and life, the irony that the nationalist poet is on a U.S. stamp isn’t lost on me. It’s like when Puerto Rico was given a quarter along with the 50 states of the United States. Does the U.S. Postal Service expect Ricans to flock to the post office to get their own piece of Julia de Burgos as opposed to flocking to the streets to demand say the right to vote for president or the right to determine their own future? I don’t even know if the stamp is available only in Puerto Rican post offices or post offices across the U.S. (I have asked this question to the U.S.P.S and am awaiting a reply).

Updated Tuesday morning: Someone in the USPS did get back to me late last night regarding the Julia de Burgos commemorative stamp. It will be available in all post offices beginning September 14th. It is part of a series celebrating “Hispanic heritage in America”. The first stamp in this series celebrated the Landing of Columbus.

I wonder what Julia herself would say. For some reason the lines of her own poem To Julia de Burgos answer in her voice:

They lie, Julia de Burgos. They lie, Julia de Burgos