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Poetry 23
I don’t know. I come back onstage.
I walk toward the footlights
as if toward yesterday
swifter than a squirrel
with my child’s drool
and a tricolor flag on my breast
According to Guillermo Cabrera Infante, Padilla never
recovered from his time in Villa Marista, or from the shame he
felt in making his sham confession. Heberto Padilla died in
2000.
Text-Dependent Questions
1. How did José Martí die?
2. Name the person who was considered Cuba’s national poet.
3. What did Dulce María Loynaz call “a secret door into heaven”?
Research Project
Find a translation of a poem by a Cuban poet (one covered in this chapter
or someone else). Read the poem closely, looking up any words you don’t
know. Then write a brief explanation of what you think the poem means.