Abstract
This chapter reveals an unexplored facet of poet Regino Boti (Guantanamo, 1878–1958) as a Catalan-Cuban intellectual and provides insight into the processes of transculturation reflected in both his poetry and his political activity. The study of Regino Boti’s collaboration with the Catalanist journal La Nova Catalunya during the year 1911 enables the reactivation of unexplored journalistic texts that reveal the nature of his relationship with the Catalan community and bring new light to the analysis of the representation of Afro-descendants within the Catalan diaspora. The first section of this chapter focuses on the evolution of Boti’s poetry toward a form of Afrocubanismo closely related to other avant-garde aesthetic movements. The second section discusses Boti’s federal republicanism, which is a response to the centralism of Cuban nationalism from Guantanamo, a peripheral territory the meanings of which have been shaped by colonialism, imperialism and centralism.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Notes
- 1.
According to Kathrin Theumer (2017, p. 16), José Manuel Poveda (Santiago de Cuba, 1888–Manzanillo, 1926) is a contradictory figure in the Cuban literary canon, who has been criticized for his individualistic approach. For Theumer, Poveda’s apparent individualism and nomadism anticipate the migratory discourse of cubanía [Cubanness] later developed by Fernando Ortiz.
- 2.
This free version of the poem intends to make accessible the images written by Boti to the reader without knowledge of the Castilian language, while keeping part of the form of the original sonnet. I provide two alternative titles: ‘Open water’ as a cultural translation of ‘Aguaza’, which could be read as a deformation or transformation of the word ‘agua’ [water] through the augmentative suffix ‘-aza’ to indicate vastness; and ‘Sap’, as a linguistic translation of the term.
- 3.
Babul is the name of a music and dance of African origin from the Caribbean.
- 4.
Aline Helg (1995) has studied the Afro-Cuban struggle for equality in Cuba after the end of slavery in 1886. This included the armed revolt of the anti-racist party Partido Independiente de Color in 1912 and the subsequent massacre of its members by the professional troops of the Government, which are evidence of the magnitude of the conflicts within Cuban society.
- 5.
Joan Creixell (1984) has studied the origin of the estelada.
- 6.
In Beatón and Guitérrez (2016), artists Alexander Beatón Galeano and Pedro Frank Gutiérrez launched the exhibition Mnemotecnia. Palabras al hombre new in Guantanamo, in the context of the Regino E. Boti literary and visual arts prizes. According to Víctor Hugo Purón (2016, n.p.), the art installations, photographs and videos by Beatón and Gutiérrez explored the impact of the naval base of Guantanamo on the identities, imaginaries and attitudes of the people of the region.
References
Academia Cubana de la Lengua. (1956). Guantánamo en la obra de Regino E. Boti. Boletín de la Academia Cubana de la Lengua, 5–7, n.p.
Arnedo Gómez, M. (2006). Writing Rumba: The Afrocubanista Movement in Poetry. Charlottesville and London: University of Virginia Press.
Assemblea Constituent del Separatisme Català (1928, December). Constitución Provisional de la República Catalana, La Nova Catalunya, 330, 1–14.
Beatón, A., & Guitérrez, P. F. (2016, June). Mnemotecnia. Palabras al hombre new (Art Exhibition). Guantanamo: Galería Autografía del Centro Provincial de Artes Plásticas.
Blok Cathalonia. (1911, March 10). La tasca del Blok. La Nova Catalunya, 86, 5.
Boti, R. (1911a, March 10). A propòsit del ‘Bloc Cathalonia’. La Nova Catalunya, 86, 7.
Boti, R. (1911b, July 10). La cuestión de la bandera catalana. La Nova Catalunya, 98, 1–2.
Boti, R. (1913). Arabescos mentales. Barcelona: Torbella impresor. Retrieved July 16, 2018, from http://www.cubaliteraria.cu/autor/regino_boti/poesia/arabescos.htm.
Boti, R. (1921). El mar y la montaña: versículos indemnes. Havana: 1921. Retrieved July 16, 2018, from http://www.cubaliteraria.cu/autor/regino_boti/poesia/marmontana.htm
Boti, R. (1929). Kodak-ensueño. Havana: Revista de Avance. Retrieved July 16, 2018, from http://www.cubaliteraria.cu/autor/regino_boti/poesia/kodak.htm.
Boti, R. (1930). Kindergarten. Havana: Hermes. Retrieved July 16, 2018, from http://www.cubaliteraria.cu/autor/regino_boti/poesia/kindergarten.htm.
Boti, R. (2017). Guantánamo. In D. E. Waliceck & J. Adams (Eds.), Guantánamo and American Empire: The Humanities Respond (pp. 258–259). Cham: Palgrave Macmillan.
Cairo, A. (1978). El Grupo Minorista y su tiempo. Havana: Editorial de Ciencias Sociales.
Castells, V. (1986). Catalans d’Amèrica per la independència. Barcelona: Editorial Pòrtic.
Creixell, J. (1984). Origen de la bandera independentista. Barcelona: El Llamp.
Fernández Retamar, R. (2017). La poesía, reino autónomo. Cordoba, Argentina: Editorial Universitaria Villa María.
Helg, A. (1995). Our Rightful Share: The Afro-Cuban Struggle for Equality, 1886–1912. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press Books.
Ibarra, J. (1981). Nación y cultura nacional. Havana: Editorial Letras Cubanas.
Lipman, J. (2009). Guantánamo: A Working-Class History between Empire and Revolution. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press.
Marinetti, F. T. (2001/1909). Filippo Tommaso Marinetti, The Founding and Manifesto of Futurism, 1909. In M. A. Caws (Ed.), Manifesto, a Century of Isms (pp. 185–189). Nebraska: University of Nebraska Press.
Moore, R. D. (1997). Nationalizing Blackness: Afrocubanismo and the Artistic Revolution in Havana, 1920–1940. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press.
Ortiz, F. (1978/1940). Contrapunteo cubano del tabaco y el azúcar. Caracas: Biblioteca Ayacucho.
Philips, A. W., March, K. N., & Greene, R. (2012). The Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Purón, V. H. (2016, June 3). Base militar de Estados Unidos vs identidad local de Guantánamo, en miradas gráficas. Venceremos (n.p.). Retrieved July 18, 2018, from http://www.venceremos.cu/guantanamo-base-naval/6035-base-militar-de-estados-unidos-vs-identidad-local-de-guantanamo-en-miradas-graficas.
Roig de Leuchsenring, E. (1927, December). Un animador de tipos afrocubanos. Revista Social, 12, 18–19, 68, 94.
Smorkaloff, P. M. (1997). Readers and Writers in Cuba: A Social History of Print Culture, 1830s–1990s. New York and London: Garland Publishing.
Theumer, K. (2017). Nomadic identity and lo cubano in José Manuel Poveda. Latin American Literary Review, 44, 16–23.
Venegas, H. (2003). La formación de las regiones históricas en Cuba (Una propuesta de periodización). Contrastes, Revista de Historia, 12, 143–158.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2021 The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Jerez Columbié, Y. (2021). Regino Boti’s Poetics and the Construction of Identities in Guantanamo. In: Essays on Transculturation and Catalan-Cuban Intellectual History. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-73040-6_4
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-73040-6_4
Published:
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-030-73039-0
Online ISBN: 978-3-030-73040-6
eBook Packages: HistoryHistory (R0)