 Good afternoon. I'm really pleased to have been here and I want to thank most of all your presence, your interest in Cuban literature and Cuban art, but the friends of the San Francisco Library have been, you know, opening these horizons for us to meet and to exchange. I will read some poems. I would like to thank both Tony Ryan, who has been the coordinator of this visit, especially Sara Cooper and the people of the Cubana Books. They have been doing a wonderful job in terms of publishing young female Cuban writers. I am not the youngest. But as you know, it's very important to know that our youngest generations have a relationship and an interest for my writing. I have to say, too, that this documentary made by Juana Maria Gordones Cook from Uruguay, but based in Colombia, Missouri, was made with Rolando Estevez from Ediciones Pijillas. I'm not going to add nothing more than that. And I wanted you to know, to explain that I think it would be really my medic, you know, to read, I love my master, because you have heard my voice reading it in Spanish. As you all know, I'm a Cuban. I live in Havana. I was born and raised in Havana. My mother tongue is Spanish, so it will be my pleasure to read my poems in Spanish. And then this friend of me, she will be reading the English translations by Pamela Carmel from San Luis, Missouri. This is a booklet that you will have. And I would like to start with a poem dedicated to one of the subjects, you know, of the so-called black poetry or Afro-Cuban poetry in the 30s of 20th century, especially the movement that was led by Nicolas Guillen. I do it in a very personal way, because the importance of the toys of my poems in these books' edition is that there are lyrical poems in which you can receive the inner feelings of a black woman, a black woman in Cuba. But I'm not talking in a very, how could we say, a conventional, traditional way, like in these two poems, like Black Woman and I Love My Master. So I would like to begin this reading. I will read in Spanish. Of course, I'm sorry for my English, which is more or less the English I learned in school. It's a foreign language. We don't speak English in my island. It's an exception of, you know, what happens in other Caribbean islands, which have an English-speaking expression. El tambor. Mi cuerpo convoca la llama. Mi cuerpo convoca los humos. Mi cuerpo en el desastre como un pájaro blando. Mi cuerpo como islas. Mi cuerpo junto a las catedrales. Mi cuerpo en el coral. Aires los de mi bruma. Fuegos sobre mis aguas. Aguas irreversibles en los azules de la tierra. Mi cuerpo en plenilunio. Mi cuerpo como las codornices. Mi cuerpo en una pluma. Mi cuerpo al sacrificio. Mi cuerpo en la penumbra. Mi cuerpo en claridad. Mi cuerpo engravido en la luz vuestra libre en el arco. My drum. My body summons the flame. My body summons the smoke. My body in disaster like a gentle bird. My body like islands. My body beside the cathedrals. My body up in the coral. Faces of my sea mist. First fire upon my waters. Waters irreversible in the blues of the earth. My body in full moon. My body like the quails. My body on a feather. My body to sacrifice. My body in shadows. My body in full sun. My body weightless. In the light, your light free in the arc. Thank you so much. Very good reading. The next poem is dedicated to the memory of a neighbor, a female neighbor of all Havana, really disturbed by ruins and some uncomfortable things that we do have in our city, in spite of all the efforts and the things we do. So this is this period of resistance in my way. Her name, the name of this woman was Nelida and is dedicated to the memory of a cousin, a very beloved cousin, Angel Roberto Hernández Rivera, who was the one who typed and discovered my diary in which there were my very first poems. So my very first book was died by himself and published in Edición Angel Puente in 1962. But he used to live also in all Havana and he had a very tragic death. Nelida. Era la brisa de la primavera, Inelida, callada, se asomaba el balcón todos los días. Siempre fue así. Inelida, como las tarimas del mercado, asomaba el balcón. Así era siempre. Nelida, recostada las barandas de un vetusto balcón sin dueño, hablándoles en la madrugada las voces del pregonero, sin que su voz llegara a mis oídos. A paisada, desde su densa piel, iba saliendo un humo hasta la luna. Era la brisa de las misiones, tocando a cada puerta, preguntando por la sombra de Nelida, pequeña, con una flor junto a la sien. Así estaba por siempre, acodada el balcón. Pepe Romera pasaba cabiz bajo, pasaba y glamenchaca, sin levantar sus ojos del portón. Pasaban todos bajo la enramada, sumergidos sus cuerpos en un río de sonidos. Pasaba una brisa de mar clavándose como una cicatirice. Siempre fue así. Chiquitica ambulante atravesando la parlante barbería de los Taylor sobre la esquina el espejo y el drill del primer Guillermo. Manrique con su más antigua barbería, con Guillermito adentro, menor y acompañado con su bata blanquísima y la esquina. Manrique con sus rejas charriantes como gatos mojados por un agua del cielo. Un buen día, esa brisa del mar paró su rumbo para asomarse a los balcones de Manrique, a los balcones de una mujer tostada por el sol, de una mujer con sombra y sin canteros, una sola mujer pequeña y sin palabras, a quien llamaban Nelida todos los que pasaban, los que volvieron a pasar, los que pasamos y seguimos pasando bajo el balcón de Nelida. Paso y reclamo su vista fija en el andamio, Nelida con sus brazos de ahorcada. Vuelvo a pasar buscando un arcoíris, paso de nuevo y al pasar levanto la mirada y paro yo también para buscar refugio sin tampoco saberlo en el balcón de Nelida, ya sin brisa marina, sin su Manrique y sin su flor, que desapareciera sin saberlo. Una tarde sepultado su cuerpo por los escombros implacables de un techo, sepultado su cuerpo por los escombros del dolor. Nelida. A spring breeze was blowing and without a word, Nelida appeared in her balcony every single day. That's how it always was. And as if it were a stall at the market, Nelida appeared on her balcony. It was always that way. Nelida leaning against the railing of a rickety old balcony no one owned. At dawn answering the strolling vendors, shouts. Though her voice never reached my ears, her body stretched out, smoke rising off her dense skin all the way to the moon. A breeze was blowing down Misiones Avenue, knocking on every door, inquiring about the shadow of Nelida, a small woman, with a flower behind her ear. She was always there, elbows resting on the balcony. Pepe Romero walked by downcast. Ilda Menchaca walked by, not raising her eyes from the doorway. Everyone walked under the arbor, their bodies submerged in a river of sounds. A sea breeze passed by, latching on like a scar. That's how it always was. Chiquitica, flitting here and there, strolling past the tailor's chatty barbershop. On the corner, the mirror and Guillermo, Sr., in his twill suit. Manrique Street, with its barbershop older than time, and Guillermo inside, busy with a customer, in his gleaming white smock on the corner. Manrique Street, its railings screeching like cats soaked in a downpour. One fine day, the breeze stopped in its tracks and appeared on the balconies of Manrique Street. On the balcony of a woman, browned by the sun, a woman with shade and no flower beds, a small, solitary woman with nothing to say, called Nelida by everyone who passed by. Those who walk past her balcony again, we who pass by again and again under Nelida's balcony. I walk by and cry out for her gaze fixed on the scaffold. Nelida, her arms dangling like a hanged woman's. I walk by again, searching for a rainbow. I walk by once more, and as I do, I raise my eyes. And I too stop, not realizing I was seeking refuge at Nelida's balcony. Now, with no ocean breeze, without her Manrique Street, without her flower. Since she disappeared, not even realizing it one afternoon, her body buried by the implacable rubble of a roof, her body buried by the rubble of pain. Cantares. Desde el cantar de los cantares, muchos quisieron confinar la poesía, pero el cantar de los cantares, y lular de las jirafas en las unglas, la salvaban, la acariciaban, la traían suavemente de la mano hasta depositarla en el segundo más fugaz de hoy. Buscando la verdad, la poesía fue creando la más antigua herancia, y vagó sola durante muchos siglos, por los siglos de los siglos, desde el cantar de los cantares. Nadie la pudo contener, ninguno pudo hacer la suya. Nadie siquiera logró domesticarla, ninguna la pudo interceptar, solo el pájaro azul de la mañana. Songs. Ever since the Song of Songs, many have tried to lock poetry away, but the Song of Songs, and the ululating of giraffes in the jungle, saved her, caressed her, led her gently by the hand, then nestled her in the most fleeting second of today. Searching for the truth, poetry was forging the oldest nomadic path, and she wandered alone for many centuries, century after century, ever since the Song of Songs. No one could hold her back, no one could make her his, no one even found a way to tame her, no woman could waylay her, just the little bluebird in the morning. Ondomar, entre la palabra y el silencio, hay un ondomar, un océano de posibilidades en fin. El habla y el sonido se torna una sola luz en el atardecer. Los poetas, en cambio, arrojados a ese ondomar entre la palabra y el silencio, se dejan empujar por un sinfín de plumas. Los poetas, ahora convertidos en pájaros multicolores, inician por fin su diálogo infinito entre las plumas y el silencio. Deep sea, between words and silence there is a deep sea, an ocean of possibilities without end. Speaking and sound become a single light in the afternoon. Poets, on the other hand, cast into that deep sea between words and silence, are pushed along by no end of feathers. These poets, now changed into multicolored birds, finally begin their everlasting dialogue between feathers and the silence. Now the poem that entitles this collection, this new collection of poems. How many instincts in Spanish? Querencias, which means things that we love, things that we prefer, things that are always with yourself. No el cielo, sino su sombra tumbada sobre el agua. No el mar, sino su sombra hundida en las profundidades. No las arenas, sino su sombra amiga. No el monte amigo, sino su sombra dentro de la noche. No el fuego, sino la sombra de su lengua metálica. No el viento, sino el húmedo arco de las islas. No el fantasmas de las casas abandonadas, sino la sombra de un trasmundo. No el todo, sino su única sombra sobre una piedra única. No el sueño entero, sino su larga sombra parcial, vagando hacia el comienzo de una breve quimera. Ninguna lengua, sino el rumor violento suave de cada palabra. No la música toda, sino el sonido inmemorial de un canto fijo. No en nuestra voz, sino en la voz de una niña hechizada por la mágica alfombra de la libertad. No el rayo del ciclón, sino la sombra del relámpago sobre el arroyo. No la cascada, sino su hebra de plata cayendo en el abismo. No el abismo, sino el salto del equilibrista ya sin aliento. No la palma en la verde llanura, sino su soledad a la sombra de un manjuari perdido. No el laberinto, sino el grito de sus espejos. No el aguacero de los planetas, sino la lluvia escoltada por los vapores del verano. No la costa mojada, sino la sombra de la recipe en su espera sin fin. No el puñal, sino la sombra de su filo en tus ojos. No el ser supremo, sino nuestros seres queridos dibujando su propia sombra cada día, lanzando un ancla virgen al borde de un puerto cualquiera de este mundo a esta hora. Homing instincts. Not the sky, but its shadow lying back on the water. Not the sea, but its shadow submerged in its depths. Not the sand, but their friendly shadow. Not the friendly mountain, but its shadow deep inside the night. Not the fire, but the shadow of his metallic tongue. Not the wind, but the damp arc of the islands. Not the ghost of the abandoned houses, but the shadow of an afterlife. Not the entire scene, just its shadow over just one rock. Not the whole dream, but its long half shadow drifting toward the start of a brief chimera. No language, but the violent or soft murmur of each word. Not to all the music, but the age-old sound of a song, fixed not in our voice, but in the voice of a little girl bewitched by the magic carpet of freedom. Not the lightning bolt in the cyclone, but the lightning's shadow across the stream. Not the waterfall, but its strand of silver falling into the abyss. Not the abyss, but the leap of the tightrope walker already out of breath. Not the palm tree on the green plain, but its solitude by the shadow of a lost Manwari gar. Not the labyrinth, but its mirrors crying out. Not the downpour from the planets, but the rain ushered in by the steamy air of summer. Not the damp coast, but the shadow of the coral reef in its endless weight. Not the dagger, but the shadow of its blade in your eyes. Not the supreme being, but our loved ones drawing their own shadow every day, casting a virgin anchor at the mouth of some port in this world at this moment. Lianas, peces y algas. Camino sobre el río, la luz del sol alumbra suavemente. Me sida por un gas de extraña flores. Lianas, peces y algas, voy vogando. Una fuerza me empuja y no lo sé. Un marino de cobre me contempla desnudo. Me sida por un gas de extraña flores, voy vogando entre peces, lianas y algas. Estamos lado a lado mirando hacia la orilla. Unas mujeres hablan, otras mujeres cantan. Tú y yo marino nos dejamos llevar, nos dejamos llevar. Camino sobre el río, caminas sobre el río. Aquellos ojos nos señalan, sus pupilas desprenden el fuego más profundo. Una fuerza me empuja y no lo sé. Una fuerza del agua nos arrastra. Allabamos hundidos, allabamos hundiéndonos. Allabamos hermosos entre las dulces aguas del río. Lianas, peces y algas. I travel on the river. The light from the sun shines softly. Rocked by a clutch of strange flowers. Lianas, peces y algas. I row along. A force pushes me on and I don't realize it. Naked, a copper sailor gazes at me. Rocked by a clutch of strange flowers, I row along among fish, lianas and algae. Side by side we are looking toward the shore. Some women are talking. Others are singing. Sailor, you and I are swept along. We are swept along. I travel on the river. You travel on the river. Those distant eyes are fixed on us. Their pupils flash the deepest fire. A force pushes me on and I don't realize it. A force from the water drags us along. Sunken, we go on. Sinking down, we go on. Beautiful, we go on through the sweet waters of the river. This will be the last poem very referred to the subject of I Love My Master. It has to deal with slavery. But it's the result of slavery in the psyche of a slave. We always listen to the consequences and the social problems, economical problems, political problems that come from slavery. But I wanted to get into inner feelings that happens in your psyche, like in the case of I Love My Master. This is a very different poem from I Love My Master, but it's the background in slavery. Así lo cuentan las leyendas. Las pisadas del antílope cuando avesina su elegancia alertan al cazador que espera a gasapado y trémulo. Así lo cuentan las leyendas. Pero y tus pisadas y tus sigilosa aparición esas me toman por sorpresa. Me asaltan para siempre a gasapada como el cazador, trémula como la hoja de hierba sin palabras precisas, sin lengua como un bosal del siglo XIX. So the legends go. The footsteps of the antílope as its elegance draws closer alert the hunter who lies in wait crouched down and trembling. So the legends go. But what about your footsteps and your stealthy approach? All of that takes me by surprise, forever assails me, crouched down like the hunter, trembling like a blade of grass without the right words, without a language, like a slave just off the boat in the 19th century. Very much we would like you to react or you know the last part of this boy to read it should have some time for questions you may raise or commentaries or whatever you may like. Or if you want me to read another poem of a book I would do it. It would be my pleasure but I don't think so in general what we teach in the schools are the so-called classics and not the contemporary. I am meaning by that that of course Cuban literature cannot be taught without the presence of Jose Martí or the modernist poets. In our case modernism has nothing to do with the Brazilian modernism, but it deals with Ruben Dario and Nicaragua and the modernism influenced the Spanish generation, the so-called generation of 98. And even that one of 1927 would do, teach Nicolás Guillén of course, we do teach all the movement of poets of the 30s which deal with Afro-Cuban themes like Alejo Garpentier, Regino Pedroso and even a very young female poet that lived in Key West, Juana Guerrero, very important for the group of originals for José les Amalimas, for Elisio Diego, Fina García Marrús. Then there is the generation of Paolo Armando Fernández, Roberto Fernández Ritamar, Rafael Chacón-Nardi, Jair Ginerrera and then mine. I'm not young anymore as you all know but the official programs for teaching literature don't focus on contemporary literature. Sometimes what they do is just to, you know, especially in book fairs, we have a very huge book fair and we do organize workshops, whatever, you know, the ordinary life of a literature. But young people, they have scholarships, they have possibilities, great possibilities of editing and, you know, placing their work. But the official programs for studying Cuban literature stops in the middle of 20th century. No, we were saying this morning that I was born in 1944, can you imagine? And there was a mistake for someone there who said that I had a century. I would have liked to have 100 years like a character by Gabriel García Marquez, but I don't have 70, only 70. Yeah, but I will never forget one of the very first interviews that García Marquez gave in December 1982 after receiving the Nobel Prize. There was a journalist that asked him, which are the worst times for a writer, the most difficult times for a writer, and he answered the very first 40 years. You know, it's really difficult to write and to publish. I mean, there's a difference, a big difference between writing and publishing. They should be more or less together, but sometimes there are many, many writers that they publish later and later from the time they created their own texts. That's it, yes. How do you know that? Let me tell you, let me be honest. And, you know, I trust in inspiration, at least for poems. You cannot write a poem every day. I sit down maybe longing to write a poem, but it doesn't come. It's not a problem that I want to write it in. It comes and you accept its presence. But you have to feel free yourself. Novelists and short storytellers, they have another kind of craft, another kind of discipline. They need to write every day, at least a paragraph. They need to create the portrait of a character, whatever. They need to listen to the spoken language in order to save the flavor of talk, because characters talk, like in the theater. So, a poet is a very difficult thing and I confess here that if I don't write often, I'm not worried. I know that sometime in the future it's gonna come again and I will be completely absent of the environment in which I will be to write the poems that may come. And if they stop and they don't come anymore, well, that's very important. What cannot happen is to negotiate, to fall into what is called the so-called market, because a poem, an artificial poem, cannot reach the reader and cannot reach publishers and editors. When you are writing from a good willing and especially from a truth, each person has a truth that has to say. So, if I start to, you know, make a mise-en-scene, you know, to make like a theater, that's very bad, because it's not you, it's not honest. You need to be transparent and you need to trust in your lines and you need to read, you need to cultivate your technique. That's a very important tool. You write sometimes, I have an inspiration. I write down several lines and I hide them in a drawer. There's a time, times goes by and I got them again, take them again and rewrite what I wrote. But there is the strength of inspiration which is very important.