Arts and Literature of Cuba

I don’t know. I come back onstage. I walk toward the footlights as if toward yesterday swifter than a squirrel with my child’s drool and a tricolor flag on my breast

According to Guillermo Cabrera Infante, Padilla never recovered from his time in Villa Marista, or from the shame he felt in making his sham confession. Heberto Padilla died in 2000.

Text-Dependent Questions

1. How did José Martí die? 2. Name the person who was considered Cuba’s national poet. 3. What did Dulce María Loynaz call “a secret door into heaven”?

Research Project Find a translation of a poem by a Cuban poet (one covered in this chapter or someone else). Read the poem closely, looking up any words you don’t know. Then write a brief explanation of what you think the poem means.

Poetry 23