SUBVERSIVE POEMS
Padilla, Heberto
Heberto Padilla, the Cuban poet, was arrested by the Castro government on March 20, 1971. He had in 1968 won an international prize for his book Fuera del Juego (Out of the Game), sponsored by...
...We have stables for the beasts of burden and we have passed legislation with the spontaneity of hangmen...
...And finally they asked him politely to start moving because during hard times this is, no doubt, the decisive test...
...But it feels good to build it as we do with this loyalty, this political unity...
...We present here a number of these, with permission, translated by members of the Cuban Students Association at Georgetown University...
...And later let anything happen: let them tear your cherished page, let them stone your door down, let the people gather before your body as if you were a prodigy or a dead man...
...Second: to be handsome, careful and obedient...
...They explained to him later that all these donations would be useless unless he also surrender his tongue because during hard times nothing could be more useful for stopping hatred or lies...
...We are still building this empire exactly according to plan...
...Translated by R. LEIVA Instructions for Entering a New Society First: optimism...
...They asked him for his legs —which were knobby and hard— because during hard times is there anything better than a good pair of legs for building or for trenches...
...Two weeks after Padilla's arrest he sent a confession of his "sins," Stalinist-style, which won his freedom a few weeks later...
...he then appeared at a public meeting in Havana urging heretical fellow writers, at least eight of whom, including his wife, he mentioned by name, to turn to the "right" attitudes...
...We are even moved by the sound made by the doorbell at the door of the moneylender...
...It is hard to build an empire when you are yearning for all the innocence in the world...
...They asked him for his lips —which were parched and dry— so that they issue an affirmation and with each affirmation build the dream (the high dream...
...To have passed all the physical fitness tests...
...They asked him for the woods that nourished him as a child with its obedient trees...
...Translated by JORGE GUITART SUBVERSIVE POEMS...
...Poetica S ay the truth...
...They asked him for his chest, his heart, his shoulders...
...Protect yourself from the timid and the frightened, because one day they will not rise when you enter...
...They told him it was strictly necessary...
...Translated by JORGE GUITART HEBERTO PADILLA 130 To Write in The Album of a Tyrant Protect yourself from those who vacillate, because one day they will know what they don't want...
...Say, at the very least, your truth...
...On May 20, 1971, a group of European and Latin-American writers, all supporters of the Castro revolution, wrote to express their "shame and anger" at the "pitiful text of the confession Heberto Padilla has signed," a text, they said, that "could have only been obtained by methods which are the negation of legality and revolutionary justice...
...They asked him for his eyes that once had shed some tears so that he could see the clear side (especially the clear side of life) for when it comes to horror one single eye will do...
...Translated by RAM6N MESTRE In Hard Times They asked him for his time so that he join it to the time of History...
...And finally to move just like a member: a step forward, and two or three back: but always applauding...
...He had in 1968 won an international prize for his book Fuera del Juego (Out of the Game), sponsored by UNEAC (the Union of Cuban Writers and Artists), though the UNEAC soon announced its disapproval of the jury's verdict...
...Details of this incident, so damning for those intellectuals who have tried to argue that Cuba is "different" from other Communist regimes, can be found in Jose, Yglesias's "The Case of Heberto Padilla," New York Review of Books, June 3, 1971...
...They asked him for his hands because during hard times there is nothing better than a good pair of hands...
...Heberto Padilla, the Cuban poet, was arrested by the Castro government on March 20, 1971...
...Translated by L. PEREZ The New Caesars Sing Y Y e keep on building the Empire...
...Protect yourself from those who mumble, Juan-the-stutterer, Pedro-the-mute, because one day they shall find their strong voice...
...for a critical comment on the intellectuals' statement, see "The Poet and the Dictator," DISSENT, August 1971...
...Meanwhile, there remain the poems of Fuera del Juego...
...It will have its bishop and its whore and of course a whole bunch of cops...
...We have opened houses for the dictators and avenues for their ministers to be filled with great fanfare the night they celebrate...
Vol. 20 • April 1973 • No. 2
