Zoraida Burgos, the great poetic voice of the Ebro, has died.

BarcelonaThe writer Zoraida Burgos died this Sunday at the age of 92 in the same place where she was born in 1933, during the Second Republic: Tortosa. From there, rooted in the rice paddies, "on the periphery," as she would say, she built a poetic oeuvre that speaks of identity, the passage of time, beauty, the contradictions of life, and the mystery of death, from the combative spirit of the 1970s to the depths of maturity. Her last book, Coexistence of waters, which brings together all his poetry, published in 2017 by LaBreu and which earned him the Catalan Critics' Prize 2018This is what brought the work of this poet back to readers, a poet whose publications had previously been scattered, small, or unsuccessful. In 2023, she received the Creu de Sant Jordi (Cross of St. George).

Catalan, the language of the people

The daughter of a father from Extremadura and a Castilian speaker at home, she found her poetic voice in Catalan, the language of peasants and not of the literature she read. Her two greatest influences were her reading of The bull's hideby Salvador Espriu, and the poetry of T.S. Eliot. He was part of the generation of post-war poets from the Terres de l'Ebre, along with Jesús Massip, Manuel Pérez Bonfill, and Gerard Vergés, among others. Initially, he cultivated social poetry because "it was a necessity," he explained in an interview on the ARA"There was no way to say things. We were so naive that we thought we could achieve things through words. And I suppose we couldn't. You were left with the feeling of fulfilling some kind of debt," he said.

His first book of poems was Of love, longing, and other things (1971) and around the same time began writing children's fiction for the Joventut publishing house—she published more than a dozen. She maintained both lines of production throughout her career, while also working as a librarian in Amposta and Tortosa. Among her poetry titles, the following stand out: Vespers (1978), Night cycle (1982), Highlights (1989), Blues (1993) and Absolve time (2012). In 1993 he received the Pin i Soler prize for his work of poetic prose. The obsession with the dunes (1994). Her poetry is included in various poetry anthologies and collective volumes, such as Verdaguer and Manyà, cross lives (2002), The sound of the Ebro. 15 storytellers give voice to the river (2003) and Water soils. A collection of poems from the Terres de l'Ebre (2004).

His mastery of several languages and the richness of his reading also permeate his writing, which over four decades becomes more singular, abstract, and complex, without losing touch with the world. "Actually, everything I write is an autobiography, because I have no imagination," he admitted. Recognition of his work never concerned him, but poetry itself did. And, indeed, it took time for him to achieve widespread recognition, until LaBreu's literary rediscovery. His poetry is his legacy.

"Only the voice, the poem,
dissolves verb tenses,
submits to oblivion.
The verse holds the gesture in its fingers,
the intact chill of the skin."