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Cuba Libre
Poems by Nicolás Guillén
Published: Anderson & Ritchie, 1948
Translated: from the Spanish by Langston Hughes and Ben Frederic Carruthers
HTML Markup: For marxists.org in December, 2001.
Contents
Introduction to Nicolás Guillén
Don't Know No English
Wash Woman
Cane
Blues
Sweat and Lash
Chop it with the Cane Knife!
Two Kids
That Kind of Soldier, Not Me
Little Song for the Children of the Antilles
Introduction by Ben Frederic Carruthers
Cuba Libre was originally a cry for freedom and in these poems it still is. Since the days of the Cuban struggle for independence, however, we yanquis have come to know it as a delightful drink concocted from the best of light Cuban rum, a dash of limón (lime to you) and cola poured over ice. Cuba's rum is the symbol of its fiery passions, its lifeblood, its livelihood. In these poems it must represent the white blood in the veins of our mulatto poet, Nicolás Guillén. As in the perfect CUBA LIBRE, it is fused with the dark cola which for us is the symbol of his African heritage. The limón is the bitterness of frustration lending piquancy and genius to the verse as the sour juice does to the drink.
Guillén is, in the opinions of many critics of the front rank, the most gifted living Cuban poet, el cónsul de los poetas. But he is more than a Cuban, he is a citizen of the world and the champion of its inarticulate masses. Combining as he does the classic traditions of part of his ancestry, the Spanish, with the pronounced rhythms of
Africa, Guillén is the spokesman for the mulatto millions of the New World. Did not the great martyr-poet Garcia Lorca announce that he was leaving Spain to visit Cuba "the land of Nicolás Guillén"? Realizing that the peculiar dialect of the Cuban Negro lends itself readily to poetic rhythm and image, Nicolás Guillén, without knowing it, started a movement known as Afro-Cuban poetry. Its authors today include a number of white, mulatto, and black poets.
Nicolás Guillén was born in 1904, virtually with the republic itself. He came of mestizo parentage in the provincial capital of Camagüey. His father, Nicolás pere, was a journalist and political figure who rose to a seat in the national Senate. He died in 1917, While Nicolás fils was quite young and the boy was forced to seek employment as a typesetter. Although times were indeed difficult, Nicolás mnanaged to graduate in 1920, with a Bachiller en Letras y Ciencias, from the institute of Camagüey. The next year he entered the University of Havana's School of Law but soon discovered that it was not his calling. Forthwith he turned to journalism, politics, and Havana's bohemian literary life. Today, having recently returned from a long and highly acclaimed tour of South America, Nicolás Guillén is the recognized leader of literary Havana, holding tertulias in waterfront cafes, writing for newspapers, working in the congressional library, dabbling in politics, and giving voice to the anguish and hope of the underdog.
Don't Know No English
All dat English you used to know,
Li'l Manuel,
all dat English, now can't even
say: Yes.
'Merican gal comes lookin' fo' you
an' you jes' runs away.
Yo' English is jes' strike one!
strike one and one-two-three.
Li'l Manuel, you don't know no English
you jes don't know!
You jes' don't know!
Don't fall in love no mo',
Lil Manuel,
'cause you don't know no English,
don't know no English
Wash Woman
Under the explosive sun
of the bright noon-day
washing,
a black woman
bites her song of mamey.
Odor and sweat of the arm pits:
and on the line of her singing,
strung along,
white clothes
hang with her song.
Cane
Negro
in the cane fields.
White man
above the cane fields.
Earth
beneath the cane fields.
Blood
that flows from us.
Blues
I die if I don't work
and if I do, I die.
Either way I die, I die,
either way I die.
Yesterday I saw a staring man
staring at the setting sun,
yesterday I saw a staring man
staring at the setting sun:
the man was very serious
for he could not see.
Ay, the blind live sightless
when the sun sets,
when the sun sets,
when the sun sets.
Yester'day I saw a child at play
pretend to kill another child,
yesterday I saw a child at play
pretend to kill another child:
there are babes who play
like men at work!
Who will tell them when they're grown
that men are not children,
that they are not,
that they are not,
that they are not?
I die if I don't work
and if I do, I die.
Either way I die, I die,
either way I die.
Sweat and Lash
Lash,
sweat and lash.
The sun woke up early
and found the barefooted Negro.
Naked his beaten body
in the field.
Lash,
sweat and lash.
The wind went by screaming:
What a black flower in each hand!
Said the blood to him, Let's go!
Said he to the blood, Let's go!
He left all bloody, barefooted.
Trembling, the canefield
opened a way before him.
Afterwards, the sky grew silent,
and under the sky a slave
deep-dyed in the blood of the master.
Lash,
sweat and lash,
deep-dyed in the blood of the master;
lash,
sweat and lash,
deep-dyed in the blood of the master,
deep-dyed in the blood of the master.
Chop it With the Cane Knife!
The sun bakes you skin and limb,
and nothing's in your cart,
your coughing brings up blood and phlegm,
your coughing brings up blood and phlegm:
thirty cents a day's your part!
Chop it with the cane-knife, chop!
Chop it with the cane-knife, chop!
When they chew this sugar-cane
with it they'll be chewing you,
just like in the days of Spain,
just like in the days of Spain,
now the Yankee's trampling you!
Chop it with the cane-knife, chop!
Chop it with the cane-knife, chop!
Havana's far, so far away,
where your President resides
with the flag of Cuba, say,
with the flag of Cuba, say,
in his limousine he rides!
Chop it with the cane-knife, chop!
Chop it with the cane-knife, chop!
The cry of protest you give out
won't reach that far from here:
but if you'll let me, I'll shout,
but if you'll let me, I'll shout,
and I'll make them hear.
Chop it with the cane-knife, chop!
Chop it with the cane-knife, chop!
Your cane-knife tears and slices, strips
the toughest thing beneath the sky.
Your freshly laundered clothing drips,
your freshly laundered clothing drips
so take it out of the tub to dry.
Chop it with the cane-knife, chop!
Chop it with the cane-knife, chop!
Your dinner's bad, your lunch is bad,
you live bad, yes,its bad.
Your only pay's an I.O.U.
from the overseer when its due.
Chop it with the cane-knife, chop!
Chop it with the cane-knife, chop!
Two Kids
Two kids, twigs of the same tree of misery,
together in a doorway on a sultry night,
two beggar kids covered with pimples
eat from the same plate like starving dogs,
food cast up by the high tide of the tablecloths.
Two kids: one black, one white.
Their twin heads are alive with lice,
their bare heads are close together,
their mouths are tireless in the joint frenzy
of their jaws,
and over the greasy sour food
two hands: one white, one black!
What a strong and sincere union!
They are linked by their bellies and the frowning night,
by melancholy afternoons on brilliant paseos,
and by explosive mornings
when day awakens with alcoholic eyes.
They are united like two good dogs,
one black, one white.
When the time comes to march,
will they march like two good men,
one black, one white?
Two kids, twigs of the same tree of misery,
are in a doorway on a sultry night.
That Kind of Soldier, Not Me
I don't want to be a soldier,
then they won't need to send me
to jump on kids and Negroes
and folks with nothing to eat.
That kind of a soldier, not me!
Look at that horse charging
with the soldier on his back
with eyes full of hate
and mouth full of gall
and sword ready to kill
an old man or a woman.
That kind of soldier, not me!
Oh, the cold troop trains at dawn
on fierce rails of blood
running full speed
to break a strike
or close in on a sugar mill.
That kind of soldier, not me!
Oh, blindfolded eyes
that can't see because they're blindfolded.
Oh, hands that are tied
that can't reach out because they're tied.
Oh, poor soldier-slaves of some colonel.
That kind of soldier, not me!
If they ever gave me a gun,
I'd give it to my brothers to use,
to my fellow soldiers to use.
But they won't give me a gun
because I know what it's for.
That's why they won't give me a gun,
nor you, nor you, nor you.
What soldiers we would be
on horses without reins.
That kind of soldier, that's me!
A soldier who doesn't care
about a sugar mill that isn't his,
or about bossing folks around
like a tin-horn barracks king,
or about tearing the hide
off some cane field,
meaner and harder
than a slave-driver.
A free soldier, a soldier
no longer at the service of slavers.
That kind of soldier, that's me!
If you don't give me a gun,
I'll find one myself--
since I know what it's for!
Little Song for the Children of the Antilles
On the sea of the Antilles
floats a boat of paper:
floats and floats the boat boat
without a pilot.
From Havana to Portobelo,
from Jamaica to Trinidad,
floats and floats the boat boat
without a captain.
A black girl in the stern
and in the prow a Spaniard:
floats and floats the boat boat
with those two.
They pass islands, islands, islands,
many islands, always islands;
floats and floats the boat boat
without stopping.
A chocolate cannon
fires at the boat,
and a cannon of sugar sugar
answers.
Ah, my sailor-boat
with your hull of paper!
Ah, my black and white boat
without a pilot!
There goes the black girl black girl
close close to the Spaniard;
floats and floats the boat boat
with those two.
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