Burnt Sugar Cana Quemada: Contemporary Cuban Poetry in English and Spanish

By Lori Marie Carlson and Oscar Hijuelos

Here are the sights, sounds, and rhythms of Cuba, revealed in the evocative works of some of the finest Cuban and Cuban American poets of the twentieth century. In Burnt Sugar, bestselling translator Lori Marie Carlson and Pulitzer Prize-winning author Oscar Hijuelos have created an intimate collection of some of their favorite modern poems, all of which are informed by cubanía -- the essence of what it means to be Cuban. "Cuban" in this sense refers neither to ideology nor to geography but rather to the distinguishing characteristics of Cuban poetry as it has developed over time: clever verbal play, overt rhythmic notes, and an intensity of longing, whether religious, political, or amorous.

Many of these poems have never been translated into English before, and taken together they, as the editors say, "produce a vibrant, satisfying sound and vivid imagery. They allow for some understanding of modern-day preoccupations, contradictions, feelings, and attitudes considered to be Cuban." Stirring, immediate, and universal in its sensibility, Burnt Sugar is a luminous collection lovingly compiled by two of the world's foremost authorities on the subject.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Free Press
• Release date: Aug 7, 2006
• ISBN: 9780743293471

Book preview

Introduction

Oscar Hijuelos

As I write this introduction to Burnt Sugar, I do so with a very strong memory of how my late mother, Magdalena Torrens Hijuelos—a native of Holguín, Cuba, who’d come to the United States in the 1940s—did not for one second of her sixty years in this country ever forget, not even for a single day, what she called la gloria y belleza de Cuba. To commemorate this, for as long as I can remember she resorted to the practice, so common to Cubans, of writing poems. Hers were sometimes simple pictures of incidents she remembered from her youth; a portrait, circa 1928, of some vain dandy, dressed entirely in white, with a crush on her who might be strolling by her house with a bouquet of carnations—ese fulano, vestido en blanco, con una vanidad profunda; the feeling that came over her when the sunlit afternoons, moving ever so slowly and tranquilly, were suddenly disrupted by a sudden fierce downpour, un aguacero de Dios. She loved birds, los pajaritos, that sang in her garden, and often compared herself and her female companions to them, fluttering along in life, coquettishly. Angels and flowers were rife in her poems as well. One of them went:

Este es mi libro

Este es mi sueño

Esta es la flor

Que perfume mi alrededor

Este es el niño

Que llora porque

Sueña está perdido

Este es el agua

Que corre sin

Saber que es un río

Este es mi corazón

Que gime y

Ríe a la vez

Porque fue martirizado

Hoy no sufro

No padezco

Sólo confío en Dios

This is my book

This is my dream

This is the flower

that perfumes my room

This is the boy

who weeps

because he dreams he is lost

This is the water

that flows without knowing it is a river

This is my heart that laughs and moans

Because He was martyred

I do not suffer

nor do I

Reviews for Burnt Sugar Cana Quemada

[Joanna Disch · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Eon guter Einblick in die Welt der kubanischen Dichtkunst. Sehr unterschiedliche Texte mit verschiedenen Themen.