Pablo G Lleonart’s hopes after the rumor of a distant gallop of horses (+audio).
At bottom, a poem is not something you see, but the light that allows us to see. And what we see is life, wrote novelist, poet and literary critic Robert Penn Warren. But some poems are more bathed in life than others.
This is the case of the book that won the 2020 Red Mangrove Award granted by the Hermanos Saíz Association of Isla de la Juventud. El rumor de un lejano galope de caballos, by Pablo G Lleonart, refers to the difficult times that the Cuban people have lived through from the 1990s to the present and invites to a bet for hope, beyond the grayness that certain situations may become in the course of it.
«It is divided into four sections: the first is an introduction; the second is entitled Barco sin vigía (Ship without a lookout); it is followed by Este año febrero es más largo (This year February is longer) and Mañana (Tomorrow).
«I wrote the collection of poems during the COVID 19 pandemic and, although it does not address or make references to that stage, I do believe that the theme that characterizes its content is hope. It was what I set out to do.
«Hope for the difficult circumstances that Cubans have always had to live and precisely the title contains that sense of hope because it is a phrase I took from a fragment of Facundo, the story of the Argentine writer Sarmiento, when the gaucho is fighting with a tiger and remains on the ground dying, he says: the rumor of a distant gallop of horses gave him hope of salvation. That was what I tried to capture in the book, a sense of hope».
During the 32nd Havana International Book Fair, from February 15th to 25th, several presentations of the second collection of poems by the journalist and vice president of the Saiz Brothers Association took place.
«It came out after long delays caused by the situation the country is going through regarding the production of physical books, but happily it is already a fact. It will also be presented at the Book Fair here in Matanzas».
As in each of the texts that so far bear his signature, El rumor de un lejano galope de caballos starts from universal assumptions from literature, society, to address issues that are common, familiar, everyday.
«What I have tried so far with my literature is, from universal references, to try to dialogue with our daily life and it is in that line in which my collection of poems is inscribed».
Poetry is my parachute, the anchor and support of my daily life», said the writer from Matanzas to journalist Gisselle Bello, after being announced as the winner of the José Jacinto Milanés 2023 National Award for his poetry book Casa junto a las vías del tren (House by the train tracks).
Pablo G Lleonart has also won prizes such as the Quijote de poesía awarded by the Universidad de Oriente, the mini-story contest La cola de la serpiente organized by the Matanzas branch of the UNEAC on two occasions and the Eliécer Lazo award.
…ONLINE AUDIO.
Written by Jessica Mesa.
