After 14 years without publishing a book of poetry, Meireles published one of her major works, Viagem [Voyage] (1939), which marked her poetic maturity. The book had received the annual Poetry Prize from the Brazilian Academy of Letters in 1938. The title refers to a spiritual journey where life and poetry join together. Meireles was a devout Catholic, but did not emphasize her religious or social stands. In the 1940s Meireles traveled widely and the sea became for her an important image. Mar Absoluto (1942) was sea poetry with the qualities of so-called pure poetry. In 1953 she participated in a symposium on the work of Gandhi, and India had a great influence on her work. She had taught herself both Hindi and Sanskrit. Romanceiro da Inconfidência (1953) was written in the style of medieval Iberian ballads. The work draws its subject from the first colonial attempt at Brazilian Independence, in Minas Gerais in 1789, and centers on the leader of the uprising, Joaquim José da Silva Xavier, who was hailed as another Jesus Christ. Giroflê, Giroflá (1956) was based on the author's journeys to India and Italy. Meireles was a prolific contributor to Brazilian periodicals, and for a time she served as education editor of Rio's Diario de Noticías. She translated into Portuguese such diverse writers as Maeterlinck, Federico García Lorca, Anouilh, Ibsen, Tagore, Rilke, Virginia Woolf, and Pushkin. Her other works include plays and children's books. Cecília Meireles died of cancer in Rio de Janeiro on 9 November 1964, two days after her 63rd birthday. During her career Meireles was affected by many of the literary movements of her time. However, her poetry always remained intensely personal. In October 2009 she was one of the three featured authors at the Primeiro Congresso de Escritoras Brasileiras em Nova Iorque (First Congress of Brazilian Women Writers in New York) at the Centro Cultural Brasil / Brazilian Endowment for the Arts in Midtown Manhattan. References Sources Karen Peña, Poetry and the Realm of the Public Intellectual: The Alternative Destinies of Gabriela Mistral, Cecilia Meireles, and Rosario Castellanos (2008); Darlene Sadlier, Imagery and Theme in the Poetry of Cecília Meireles (1983); John Nist, The Modernist Movement in Brazil (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1967). Raymond Sayers, "The Poetic Universe of Cecilia Meireles." In Romance Studies Offered to Francis Rogers (1981) Marta Peixoto, "The Absent Body: Female Signature and Poetic Convention in Cecilia