9781422279762

Cuba that was not only independent politically but also free from the racial divisions that characterized the Spanish colony. There needn’t be any racial hatred, he wrote, “because there are no races. . . . The soul, equal and eternal, emanates from bodies that are diverse in form and color.” In early 1895, the war for independence that Martí had tirelessly promoted began. Martí landed in eastern Cuba in April to join the fighting. He served as an aide to the rebel gen- eral Máximo Gómez. On May 19, Martí was killed charging the Spanish lines at the Battle of Dos Ríos. He was 42 years old. José Martí wrote just three volumes of poetry: Ismaelillo (1882), Versos sencillos (1891; Simple Verses ), and Versos libres ( Free Verses ), published posthumously in 1913. The influence of his work, though, was profound. Martí helped usher in a Latin American literary movement called modernismo . Poets of the modernismo movement sought to reinvigorate Spanish-language poetry, which throughout much of the 19th century had been dominated by romanticism. Spanish romantic poets emphasized, above all, the unbridled expression of human emotion. By contrast, modernismo stressed restraint and the perfection of poetic form. Often its practitioners sought to imbue their verse with a musical quali- ty, and they made abundant use of symbols. Though the move- ment itself was largely over by 1920, modernismo would influ- ence Latin American poetry throughout the 20th century. José Martí’s poetic style was simple yet flowing. His poems often contain vivid images, and common themes include friendship, love, justice, freedom, and death. Cuba and its peo- ple and plight were also frequent subjects of Martí’s poetry. He

10

Arts and Literature of Cuba