Arts and Literature of Cuba

him returned from his tomb, she experiences a flood of conflict- ing emotions, including anger born of her own grief and suffer- ing. She asks him reprovingly, “Tell me, Lazarus: could it have been harder to come back to life than it would have been to stay here, where my soul embraced yours, struggling with death until bled dry?” (This translation, and the one below, is by the American poet Judith Kerman.) In “Carta de Amor al Rey Tut-Ank-Amen” (“Love Letter to King Tutankhamen”), inspired by a visit to the tomb of Egypt’s famous boy-king, Loynaz expresses her passion for the long- dead pharaoh. “I would give my living eyes,” she declares, “to feel for a moment your gaze across three thousand nine hun- dred years.” In 1946, Loynaz married for the second time. Her husband, Spanish journalist Pablo Alvarez de Caña, promoted her work enthusiastically. At his urging, Loynaz published four books in the next dozen years. They included two volumes of poetry, a travel book, and a novel, Jardín (“Garden”). Published in 1951, it told the story of a strong and inquisitive woman confronting a male-dominated society. Cuban poets and intellectuals were familiar with Loynaz’s work, and she had a small following in Spain. But Loynaz was otherwise little known. After the Cuban Revolution, Loynaz faded into complete obscurity. Her personal style of poetry, and her feminine per- spective, were ill-suited to the prevailing artistic climate, in which art was expected to serve political goals and the struggle to secure the revolution was exalted as a manly pursuit. Disdain for explicitly feminine culture was apparent.

Poetry 19