IBARBOUROU, JUANA DE

born March 8, 1895, Melo, Uruguay died July 1979 original name Juanita Fernndez Morales Uruguayan poet, one of the most famous South American women poets. Ibarbourou's poetry, rich in sensual images and expressed in simple language, deals with the themes of love and nature. A note of narcissism and eroticism present in her early works, such as Los lenguas de diamante (1919; Tongues of Diamond) and Raiz salvaje (1922; Savage Root), gave way later, in La rosa de los vientos (1930; The Rose of the Winds), to a sense of declining beauty and vitality and, finally, in Perdida (1950; Lost), to an expression of despair in old age. Although her later poetry lacked the passion and feeling of her earlier work, she remained one of the most popular poets of South America. She was elected president of the Sociedad Uruguaya de Escritores (Society of Uruguayan Writers) in 1950.