New Love Poetry/Nueva poesía de amor

John Walker is a professor of Spanish studies at Queen’s University.

When Nicolбs Guillén, the National Poet of Cuba, died in 1989, Sara
Casal, his former assistant, revealed a manuscript that had been given
to her in 1966 by Guillén. En algъn sitio de la primavera: Elegнa (In
Some Springtime Place: Elegy) is a collection of 15 poems that Guillén
wrote and had published privately, to commemorate his affair with Casal,
the inspiration of his spurned love, to whom the poems are dedicated.
Better known for his littérature engagée, Guillén captures something
of the loss of a loved one in an elegiac form, which transcends the
personal to reach universal heights. By means of a series of poetic
dialogues with artists past and present, the poet articulates the pain
of past love.

This manuscript, which was presented to Keith Ellis by Casal,
constitutes the nucleus of this volume. Ellis, who has done good work on
Guillén, has provided a preface, a 33-page critical essay (“Love and
the Continuing Revolution: New Love Poetry by Nicolбs Guillén”),
eight pages of useful notes, a bibliography, and, not least, an English
translation of Guillén’s poems. The bilingual nature of the volume
will make it sought after in the English-speaking world as well as in
Guillén’s homeland. This useful collection is rounded out by a
previously unpublished sonnet to Casal (by her compatriot Eliseo Diego)
and enhanced by 13 drawings by the Cuban painter Ernesto Garcнa Peсa.
The love of Guillén, so long perceived as a militant anti-imperialist
and anti-racist, shines through on every page of this elegantly produced
volume.