Cuba’s Eliseo Diego: the poetry of love and the eternal.
Eliseo Diego visited Matanzas many times. His deep and paused voice poured verses in the Milanés mansion during the gatherings of the Poetry Wednesdays and prevailed in the arguments expanded to the novel writers, encouraging their works, when acting as a jury in the Encounters of Literary Workshops, provincial and national, in San Miguel de los Baños and Varadero, back in the 80’s of the last century.
No one like him to reflect the lights of the city, the remains of the mansions and stained glass windows that signify the Cuban in the city breath; no one like him to investigate the corners of love and the eternal, as when he expressed: «between happiness and darkness / there is only the edge of the lamp».
«Poetry is not a luxury, but a need that must be satisfied,» said the National Literature Prize winner on one occasion, and he satiated those cravings with his colloquial style of seeing «the marvelous and intimate in everyday life,» which is also emphasized in his prose.
He was founder of the Orígenes group, together with José Lezama Lima, Cintio Vitier, Gastón Baquero and Virgilio Piñera. He won the Juan Rulfo International Prize for Latin American and Caribbean Literature, awarded in Mexico, a year before his death on March 1st, 1994 at the age of 74.
Among his great collections of poems are En la calzada de Jesús del Monte, published in 1949; El oscuro esplendor in 1966, Inventario de asombros, in 1982 and Cuatro de oros, in 1991.
In addition to his literary activities, in 1959 Eliseo Diego began an intense work as a lecturer and pedagogue both in his country and abroad. He made translations and versions of the most important figures of children’s literature in the world for our children and collaborated in the José Martí National Library and as editor of the Union magazine of the UNEAC, an institution where he held various positions.
For the people of Matanzas, his influence was decisive in the formation of many literary figures over the years. It is worth mentioning that the first issue of the Matanzas Magazine of 2020 was dedicated to the Cuban poet and writer Eliseo Diego, one hundred years after his birth.
The presentation took place in the Office of the Curator of the city, on the World Poetry Day, with the support of the Provincial Direction of Culture and the Provincial Center of the Book and Literature of Matanzas.
And despite the time, it is still exciting to remember that figure, tall and somewhat ungainly, reading his verses in the courtyard of the house of Milanés, accompanied by the relevant poets Yumurinos Carilda Oliver, Digdora Alonso, Aramis Quintero and Juan Luis Hernández Milián.
Written by María Elena Bayón.
