The Watercolorist of Antillean Poetry

Living nine decades and being a clear-thinking person until the last day of your life is such a fortune. Even more when you have turned each moment of your life into art, culture, a magic reality …

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He just had to say a few words for his quality to be recognized and dignified. Time went by and his performances in Puerto Rico, Mexico, Venezuela, Panama, Dominican Republic, Colombia, United States, Nicaragua, Spain, among other countries, made this Cuban artist consolidate his prestige.

His mother, Amelia Pullés, didn’t want her seventh son to become an orator. She preferred Laws or Medicine. Despite her position, the love and passion for words were stronger than the mother’s will.

He never liked picture-taking sessions, he used to avoid cameras and remained indifferent; he was trying to stop his mother from following his career through the mass media.

After his performance in a party at millionaire Ernesto Sarrá’s house, accompanied by Argentinean comedian Pepé Viondi, who praised the talent of this artist from Santiago that was born on July 26, 1923, and told him: … you don’t recite, you paint the poem.

From that moment on Luis Mariano Carbonell Pullés would be called The Watercolorist of Antillean Poetry. This is how he was known around the world. Other people just called him Luis Carbonell.

Carbonell stood for negroid, Afro-Cuban poetry. He brilliantly performed verses written by Nicolás Guillén, Emilio Ballagas, José Zacarías Tallet, Puerto Rican Luis Palés Matos and other poets such as Federico García Lorca and Alfonso Camín.

In each performance, Carbonell used to do his best in terms of the voices, his diction was impeccable, magisterial movements, his voice was a musical instrument; he was characterized by many virtues that enriched his artistic work, which has been admired by generations of Cubans.

The first steps in the career of this artist date back to the 1940 decade at the radio station of his hometown, CMKC, in a show for amateurs. He later worked as an accompanying pianist, artistic director and cultivated the art of recitation, while he had performances at theaters in the Eastern province and throughout Cuba.

In 1972 he had a special performance at Casa de las Américas, with a two-hour entitled Luis Carbonell in Three Times, in which he played pieces composed by Lecuona, Cervantes, Bach and Rajmaninov, among other composers; he told stories written by acclaimed writers from America and Europe, and he end it up with some Afro-Antillean scenes and poems.

The Cuban and international audience gave him tons of what matters the most: applauses. Carbonell also received several awards, such as the Replica of Máximo Gómez’s Machete, the National Awards of both Humor and Music, Order to the National Culture, Raúl Gómez García Distinction, Emeritus Artist of UNEAC, Honorary Member of Casa del Caribe; among other prizes that were handed to the artist that poet Jesús Cos Causse labeled king with not throne, but his words.

Luis Carbonell, the Watercolorist of Antillean Poetry, was a pillar of joy, feelings, cunning and national identity. He was a true master in the art of reciting. He was one-of-a-kind, unrepeatable.