CAMAGÜEY - From Espejo de paciencia to the present, much has been written in Camagüey; texts that weave together eras and enrich Cuban literature. The city of Camagüey, known as the cradle of this artistic expression, not only gave birth to the first work by Silvestre de Balboa but continues to faithfully cradle the stories of its streets, faith, and people.
To keep alive an impressive part of this creative endeavor, the poet and essayist from Ciego de Ávila with roots in Camagüey, Roberto Manzano, offers La arcilla luminosa (The Luminous Clay), a compilation that encompasses forty years of Camagüey's poetic creation.
Driven by the historical necessity of documenting the characteristics of poetry from 1970 to 2010, the author gathers in these pages more than two hundred poems. These poems are by poets from other places who created them in Camagüey, by those born here who developed elsewhere but never lost their artistic and spiritual connection to this land, and by those who stayed in this place for a long time.
For Manzano, it wouldn’t be fair to label this collection as an anthology, as he believes it doesn’t meet some of the criteria required for that title. Instead, he proposes more modest terms: selection, colactanea, sample, or compilation. Regardless of what it’s called, it is a valuable record of the imagination of Camagüey’s people, a guide for those who will continue along this path, and also for those who enjoy poetry.
La arcilla luminosa is divided into four parts, each reflecting the poetic production of a decade, with its inclinations toward certain movements and its detachment from other traditions, thereby showcasing the region's idiosyncrasies through lyrical subjects, but always with a special love for the universal, as Manzano notes.
During the book’s presentation at the Viejos Amigos fair, the author highlighted, “Camagüey's poets, when faced with the dichotomy of novelty and intensity, always end up siding with the intense." He also pointed out how some poets love structure, with a strong sense of composition that they meticulously care for, while others are more drawn to psychic release and find appeal in a certain unruliness.
The compilation brings together a range of voices from Garzón Céspedes to young and rebellious authors, within the sublime space of the diversity and grandeur of lyricism in the region. These sacred and transcendent texts are part of Camagüey’s cultural heritage.
“This book needs special readers, those who start with the first poem and don’t give up, who return to them again and again. Only then will it be a memorable experience. Those who read by skipping from page to page will never understand what Camagüey's poetry truly is," Manzano warned.
La arcilla luminosa is an invitation to meet people and worlds, and in the midst of it all, the brilliance of poetry, which is why its author asserts that it is “a clay, but a clay that shines."
Translated by Linet Acuña Quilez