Santiago de Cuba: A Praised City
Santiago de Cuba has been mentioned by some of the most prestigious Cuban poets. Martí immortalized it with one phrase as he spoke about Heredia and said: “Heredia was born where the highest palm trees of Santiago stand”.
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Santiago de Cuba is present in the finest representatives of Caribbean narrative: Walter Roberts, Alejo Carpentier and Gabriel García Márquez refer to this city on their novels.
In the 20th century a great revolutionary poet, Manuel Navarro Luna, expressed: “It’s Santiago de Cuba, so nothing should take you by surprise”. Perhaps the longest poem is César López’s, where the city is the background and Frank País García plays the leading role, on his First, Second, Third and Fourth Book of the City.
On the other hand, the shortest, more synthetic and famous poem is Waldo Leyva’s Singing to the City, who argues and states by means of consecutive negations. Three talented and moving strings have sung to the city: Beny Moré, Pedro Luis Ferrer and Roberto Valera.
Nowadays, Santiago-based poet and narrator José Orpí Galí does the same, having children as privileged public. It’s great! Reading is enjoyable, bittersweet, pleasant, encouraging. It’s written with a romance style, adapted to the tone and intention of the author, who doesn’t put aside the most successful resources of his poetry, the conversational and intimate tone, formal simplicity and conceptual depth.
But the poet hasn’t created the book by himself so it can be brought to the light. It’s the result of a collective work. A group of children, who were guided by outstanding visual artist Vivian Lozano as a pedagogue, supported the creators to obtain this magnificent outcome. Both poet Teresa Melo and enthusiast Dr. Olga Portuondo joined this project. I believe that drawings made by children have their own light, thus beautifying and refreshing the historic approach to the event.
Reading History is usually described as dry, boring and nearly pointless. Actually, the first historians were poets and that’s the reason why epic poems merge military impetus, social matters and human conflicts.
As far as I can tell, Orpí’s book includes the most significant developments in the history of Santiago. Perhaps it would be too much if we ask it to also reflect the uprising of coppersmiths, the presence of Santiago Cándamo, death of América Lavadí or a brief review of the artistic-cultural explosion that took place in Santiago after 1959. The fact is that summarizing so much history is a Hard-to-accomplish task.
However, I’ll follow my heart and express some ideas. I think it’s very positive to have prestigious poets writing about fortifications, poor houses, epidemics that earthquakes that have devastated the city. There are interesting pieces of information that refer to the invasion of snakes, how the Cathedral clock got stopped or the existence of an airport at San Pedrito.
Likewise, I’m glad to see the presence and evolution of the carnival with its defenders and critics. On the other hand we have the French mark, or French-Haitian? It gives particular characteristics to the Cuban identity, as well as our alcoholic culture and the productions of spirits since the 19th century.
Mentioning all the national heroes of our pro-independence wars would be a complex work, but fortunately there are testimonies on the inescapable figures, which represent all of them. The family also plays a leading role in the cultural tradition of Santiago.
The 20th century includes the struggle between tradition and modernity; art and politics. The poet’s sharp, sensitive and cultured, passionate and intelligent perspective manages to attract, by means of metaphors, the most important elements when it comes to strengthening the cultural and comprehensive education of the youngest generations.
Orpí is a poet of great expressiveness and resources. He had successfully written Waking the Goblin up (Ediciones Santiago, 2013) and The Book of Astonishment (Editorial Oriente, 2010).
His poetic language enriches and amalgamates the story he tells; he mentions developments with such connotative level that gives dimension to the historic reality without disfiguring it, but flooding it with the symbol of the affection.
The poet captures the essence of people of Santiago as social and cultural beings: brave, loyal, solidary, stubborn, friendly, respectful, honorable and fond of their city. The tone is epic, but is not grandiloquent; majestic, but not pompous; lyric, but not melodramatic. Orpí leaves nothing aside. He intensively narrates both the remarkable historic development and daily life.
The poet proposes meanings for the poem to gain momentum and fly high. He offers a fresh approach to his city and, by doing so he gets readers interested in digging into their history. I think that we should thank Orpí for the hard work he has carried out, along with the people that collaborated with him for the book to be a reality.
