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CUBA
NEWS
The
Miami Herald
Roots revival: Punto guajiro makes
a comeback
By Fabiola Santiago, fsantiago@herald.com.
Posted on Sun, Feb. 15, 2004
Long exiled and nostalgic for her lost
homeland like many of her Cuban friends,
Ileana Comas dressed her palm-swept Pinecrest
backyard in all the trimmings of a Cuban
celebration.
A pit-roasted pig sprawled on an oversized
tray. Black beans perfectly cuajaditos,
pressure-cooked to the right density, and
accompanied by heaps of yuca smothered in
garlicky mojo sauce.
Comas pronounced her gathering ''un guateque
cubano,'' a party typical of the Cuban countryside,
and as an eclipse of the moon hung over
the starlit sky, a trio of musicians in
linen guayaberas strolled in.
To the repetitive rhythmic beat of a Spanish
lute called a laúd, the singers,
Juan Antonio Díaz Pérez and
Asael ''Candelita'' Díaz, began belting
out décimas, poetic verses crafted
on the spot.
The singers are interpreters of punto guajiro,
the traditional music of Cuban peasants
from the western and central provinces of
the island -- a genre making a comeback
from Coral Gables to Homestead as exiles
yearning for the flavors of old Cuba hire
the musicians to entertain at their gatherings.
''I wanted the party to feel as authentically
Cuban as possible,'' says Comas, the daughter
of the late famous rumba dancer Ofelia Payá.
And there's nothing more Cuban grassroots
than punto guajiro.
The ''poets,'' as these singers are called,
evoke with rhyme images of beloved island
landmarks -- the unique hillocks of Pinar
del Río, the gorgeously deep caves
of Bellamar and the Valley of Yumurí
in Matanzas, the Escambray mountain range
in Las Villas.
They engage each other in a humorous poetic
duel -- known as la controversia, the controversy
-- about all sorts of topics, from which
Cuban province is the more beautiful to
who can craft the more metaphoric verse.
ON THE SPOT
The audience then calls out to the singers
''el pie forzado,'' a topic from which the
poets construct more verse on the spot.
''It's not easy -- the improvisator has
to have an agile mind,'' says Candelita,
60, nicknamed ''Little Spark'' for his quick
wit, short height and gutsy disposition.
He's from Las Villas and started singing
when he was 11 to overcome stuttering. Recognized
as a gifted performer, he moved to Havana
in 1964 to sing punto guajiro on the television
program Palmas y Caña. But he ended
up in prison for three years after he threw
leaflets from Havana balconies denouncing
the 1989 trial and execution of Gen. Arnaldo
Ochoa as a political farce.
Freed and granted a U.S. visa as an ex-political
prisoner, Candelita came to Miami in 1992
and readily found a spot in the punto guajiro
community, which has been a part of the
Cuban exile for 45 years but has been a
little known and appreciated subculture.
The resurgence of punto guajiro now also
stems from the new blood infused by such
recently arrived poets who grew up on a
genre of country music so old that it dates
to Andalusian roots in Spain.
These days, the most notable addition to
the punto guajiro circuit is Candelita's
partner, Juan Antonio, 33, nicknamed ''Ciclón
Vueltabajero,'' which literally translates
to something like Western Hurricane, because
he's from western Pinar del Río province.
''I was born into it,'' Juan Antonio says
of punto guajiro. "My mother was an
improvisator and I went to a special school
for child improvisators. For me, it's easier
to sing a décima than to carry on
a conversation.''
Twice the winner of Cuba's top national
award for punto guajiro poets and the author
of three volumes of décimas and poetry,
Juan Antonio was tapped by Fidel Castro
to accompany the Cuban leader on trips to
Venezuela and Algeria -- and later to sing
at anti-Cuban exile rallies to bring back
6-year-old Elián González.
CONSTANTLY WATCHED
''I had to do it,'' he says of his Castro
commitments. "They gave me an apartment
in Vedado and I was constantly watched by
the Committees for the Defense of the Revolution.
It was terrible because I didn't want to
do it, but all the time I was looking for
an opportunity to get out.''
He got the opportunity when he was tapped
to teach in Veracruz, Mexico. He fled his
post and quietly crossed the border into
the United States, making it to Miami in
December 2002.
''I'm thrilled to be here,'' he says.
He now performs with Candelita just about
everywhere there's a punto guajiro gig.
The two still sing for Cuba -- but now
from the Miami studios of Radio Martí,
where they comment on Cuban news events
through politically spiced décimas.
They're featured on the television program
on Channel 22 named after the one in Cuba,
Palmas y Caña, Palm Trees and Sugarcane.
They're also part of a squadron of poetas
who show up Sunday mornings to the four-decade
vanguard of punto guajiro in exile -- the
live Guateque campesino (Peasant Party)
radio program of Isidro Cardenas and Neida
Revuelta, now on La Poderosa 670 AM.
On this Sunday morning in January, the
poets are sad.
This time, they've come with pieces of
paper with their prepared décimas
to honor one of their own, poet Gerardo
Hilda Castillo from Matanzas, who has just
passed away in Miami. Marking the beat by
rhythmically rubbing their hands, they sing
their lament of "the death of a poet
without time to die.''
Fifteen minutes before the show is to end,
Candelita and Juan Antonio step in to give
the show its finale, a measure of controversia
with competing verse to honor punto guajiro
itself.
Juan Antonio congratulates Barbarita, who
is celebrating her quince, her 15th birthday,
and then belts out his first verse:
"Today, I don't know how my flag
even fits in my hand
as we honor this artform of the peasants.''
Never to be outdone, Candelita kicks up
the poetry a notch.
DREAMY LULLABY
''Punto guajiro,'' he sings, "smells
of Cuban earth and sky, and the décima
is like a dreamy lullaby that reminds you
of abuela.''
''It's a butterfly in flight that caresses
the wind,'' Juan Antonio croons.
He's on such a roll, he does a verse to
an African-American rap beat, then ends
with a straight-ahead ode to punto guajiro.
''Without it, I am nothing,'' he finally
agrees with Candelita. "But with my
rhyming song, the sky is bright again.''
Cuba perspectives, from Columbus to
Castro
Ambitious anthology examines
health, education, Catholicism, dance, music,
film and literary cultures.
By Susan Fernandez, Posted
on Sun, Feb. 15, 2004 .
THE CUBA READER: History,
Culture, Politics.
Edited by Aviva Chomsky, Barry Carr and
Pamela Maria Smorkaloff.
Duke University. 712 pages. $26.95.
Although you might know the Pete Seeger
popularization of Guantanamera in the United
States -- ''Yo soy un hombre sincero'' --
you may not know that it came from a poem
written by Jose Marti, considered by many
to be the father of Cuba. ''In exile in
the United States,'' the editors of The
Cuba Reader write, "he successfully
forged alliances and developed the ideologies
of a popular antiracist, anti-imperialist
nationalism that still has resonance for
Cubans today.''
Marti's poem and some of his other writings
are included in this ambitious and impressive
anthology, a sweeping collection of source
materials by and about Cubans both on the
island and living in other countries. The
editors -- Aviva Chomsky, professor of history
and coordinator of Latin American Studies
at Salem State College; Barry Carr, director
of the Institute of Latin American Studies
at LaTrobe University in Melbourne, Australia;
and Pamela Maria Smorkaloff, director of
Latin American and Latino studies at Montclair
State University -- have wisely chosen songs,
paintings, photographs, short stories, essays,
speeches, government reports, cartoons and
newspaper articles that span Cuban history.
So much valuable material in one place
can be overwhelming, but the editors have
arranged their selections into time periods
that correspond with some of Cuba's major
historical turning points, such as the struggle
for independence from Spain and the Cuban
Revolution. The book is mercifully chronological,
beginning with a look at the island's original
inhabitants, the Ciboney and later the Taino,
people who left no written accounts but
whose cultures have been reconstructed by
anthropologists and historians.
When Christopher Columbus ''discovered''
Cuba in 1492, one of his scribes recorded
in the ship's log book, ''The Admiral says
he had never seen a more beautiful country.
It was covered with trees right down to
the river and these were lovely and green
and different from ours, and each bore its
own fruit or flowers.'' Columbus then went
ashore and found the homes of a couple of
fishermen, who fled in terror.
And they were smart to flee, the editors
conclude. Things were never the same afterward,
as Cuba endured rule by the Spanish. Of
the original 100,000 Indians living in Cuba
at the time of Columbus, only 5,000 remained
40 years later.
The forests that extended to the river
would also disappear, replaced by sugar
and coffee plantations worked by slaves.
Slavery would last some 300 years on the
island. The Cuba Reader contains fascinating
accounts by slaves, including an excerpt
written in the early 1800s by poet and house
slave Juan Francisco Manzano. He writes
about his frequent whippings, often in the
presence of his mother. He suffered even
more anguish when she was punished for trying
to help him.
The Cuba Reader contains not only a selection
of the writings and speeches of Castro and
but also works by Ernesto ''Che'' Guevara
and other revolutionaries. The last two
sections of the book focus on Cuba and the
modern world, with contributors tackling
feminism, Santeria and Havana Jews among
other topics. There is an interesting sampling
of photos and stories by members of the
Venceremos Brigade, Americans who went to
Cuba to help cut cane at the invitation
of the Cuban government. The book also contains
several essays on the cinema. Julio Garcia
Espinosa's critique of Cuban film, ''For
an Imperfect Cinema,'' is reprinted here,
and it's easy to see why it is regarded
as a classic.
What The Cuba Reader does extraordinarily
well is to reveal the nuances and complexity
of the Cuban experience. All shades of politics
are here, and they infuse Cuban dance, music,
film and religion. Who, indeed, is a Cuban?
the editors ask. Perhaps a Cuban is our
fictional narrator of Guantanamera, who
sings "I come from everywhere, and
I am going everywhere.''
Susan Fernandez is a writer in Bradenton,
Fla.
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