One of the great paradoxes of the Caribbean as a region revolves around the fact that there is an evident connection between the history, the culture and the heritage of each of the territories, which nevertheless is contrasted by the palpable – drastic, even – differences experienced in the realities of islands and countries that often lie within a few miles of each other. Inscribed within the colonial discourse, these differences were emphasized by the very system that prompted them, ultimately leading to the sort of extreme fragmentation that to this day – half a century after the demise of colonialism – assails the region.
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| The young Nicolás Guillén |
Evidently, old habits die hard, and some might even claim that the seeds of a very loose Pan-Caribbean consciousness have been planted in the region over the past two decades. If this were to be so, then Nicolás Guillén would have to be considered one of the greatest and most foresighted pioneers in the world. Born to a well-to-do family in Camagüey, Cuba, in 1902, Guillén’s father ran the only newspaper in the area and became a prominent political figure of the Liberal Party. Politics in Cuba have been inextricably linked with danger since long before Fidel’s revolution, however, so Guillén Sr. was identified as an undesirable detractor of the US-backed government and murdered when Nicolás, the poet, was just 15 years old. No wonder, then, we find so much hostility against yanquiinterests in his verse from its earliest origins.
Such origins stem from the 1930s, and remain to this day the primary source of Guillén’s fame. Inspired by a thorough knowledge of Cuba’s countryside and a genuine sense of identity with the plainest forms of Cuban cultural expression, Guillén broke into the literary scene with a small –almost insignificant – collection of eight poems, which he titled Motivos de son. The impact was almost immediate. Because the young artist had touched upon the very core of his people’s culture; because he had identified the sounds, the rhythm, that would soon be exported, primarily (ironically) to the US, and that would, much later, dominate the musical scene; because he had, with a simple collection, swiped from the table all the prejudices and preconceptions that argued for the supremacy of high-brow culture.
Motivos de son was followed, less than a year later, by the collection Songoro cosongo: Poemas mulatos (1931), which included the original poems from his previous work. Indeed, together the two form a unitary proposal that clearly and emphatically states Guillén’s aesthetic findings, which are closely bound to his views on ethics. Already in its subtitle, “mulatto poems,” Guillén stresses the importance of interracial relations within his island’s culture. In the largely white-dominated pseudo-aristocratic society that governed Cuba at the time, racism was not so much an issue as it was an institutionalized reality, a truism upheld and“known” by anyone with any common sense, capable of realizing that “proper”civilization came intrinsically linked to the legacy of our European forefathers, which stood diametrically opposite to the “savage” and “barbaric”heritage of African origin.
Had Nicolás Guillén focused his efforts solely on the vindication of the African element in the inextricable blend that was, and is, Cuban culture, he would already have secured notoriety, certainly in terms of media attention. Works such as “La canción de Bongó” (“Bongó’s Song”), firmly root the notion of the poet’s nation being the soil (the container, as it were) where multiracial and multicultural combination has taken place since times immemorial. So much is made explicit in verses such as: “En esta tierra, mulata / de africano y español / (Santa Bárbara de un lado / del otro lado, Changó) / siempre falta algún abuelo / cuando no sobra algún Don (“In this mulatto land / African and Spanish / (St. Barbara on the one hand / on the other hand, Changó) / one grandparent is always missing / when nobiliary titles abound not”).
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But Guillén’s genius (and sensibility) took him one step
further and ultimately turned him into an unequivocal point of reference in
Latin American and Caribbean culture. Because the “son” to which his first
collection makes reference is none other than the rhythm that became prevalent
in the eastern end of Cuba towards the beginning of the century – an
Afro-Cuban, drumming beat that soon would be used as the underlying substance
of mambo, of conga, of rumba and, ultimately, also of salsa. So, instead of adopting
traditional –western – structures to voice his social and cultural concerns,
Guillén embraced in full the eminently Cuban form (and sound) of the “son.” In
this respect, his Songoro cosongo is, rather than a collection of poems, a
songbook, along similar lines to Cole Porter’s or Rodgers & Hart’s.
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| Luis Molina Pinareña |
Which, certainly, is no mean feat. But the significance of
such an accomplishment reaches far beyond its success. While in Songoro cosongo
Nicolás Guillén focused his exploits on the nature and essence of Cuban
society, his following collection, West Indies Ltd., was a more sophisticated,
far more critical product that channeled his contempt against the abusive
attitude of American interests in the region towards a more generalized view of
the situation. Consequently, Guillén discovers in neighboring societies and
cultures similar conditions to the ones he extolled in Cuba in his first two
collections of poems: similar myths (the nighttime jumbie that takes children
to the bottom of the river), similar rites and traditions, similar geographies,
similar interracial societies, similar beats, similar despondency and similar
problems. Thus, West Indies Ltd., serves as a platform to broaden his message,
to include similar Afro-Caribbean societies in his call for vindication.
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| Nicolás Guillén in Havana |
[Published by the WEEKender supplement of The Daily Herald on
Saturday, May 19, 2012.]
