Carnival and National Identity in the Poetry of Afrocubanismo

6. “La conga prohibida”: Felix B. Caignet’s Response to Carnival Controversy in Santiago de Cuba

6 “La conga prohibida” Felix B. Caignet’s Response to Carnival Controversy in Santiago de Cuba Qué noche para gozar señores, que la conga se soltó. [What a night to enjoy folks, the conga has been let loose.] Ignacio Piñeiro, “Noche de conga” el arrollao de la conga criolla se arrastra las muchedumbres en gozo anes­ tesiante de sus angustias neuróticas. [the collective dancing of the conga criolla pulls along with it the crowds whose delight numbs their neurotic anguish.] Fernando Ortiz “Los factores humanos de la cubanidad” Though Felix B. Caignet (1892–1976) is not well known among modern students and critics of Afrocubanismo, his poems were very familiar to audiences throughout Latin America during the height of the movement thanks in large part to Eusebia Cosme (1911–1976), the famed declamadora of poesía negra and dear friend of Caignet, who included many of his poems in her widely popular recitals. Indeed, from the late 1930s through the mid-1950s many of Caignet’s poems—“Coctel de son” [Son Cocktail], “Un despojo” [A Plundering], “El bongosero” [The Bongo Player], “¡Soy maraquero!” [I am a Maraca Player], “Ña Josefa mi abuela” [Ña Josefa, My Grandmother], “Diente de coco” [Coconut Tooth], and “La conga prohibida” [The Forbidden Conga]—were prominently represented in her repertoire. In a typical recital Cosme performed between fifteen and twenty poems, and often included two or three by Caignet. A perusal Felix B. Caignet’s Response to Carnival Controversy in Santiago de Cuba · 161 of programs of her recitals from 1936—the year that Caignet arrived in Havana with his poems in hand—to the mid-1950s reveals that Nicolás Guillén is the only Cuban poet that Cosme recited more frequently than Caignet (fig. 6.1).1 Despite the fact that Caignet’s poems were recited often, their relative anonymity among modern readers is understandable since many of them were not available in print until the publication of his only book of poetry , A golpe de maracas [To the Beat of the Maracas], in 1950. It is likely because of their belated publication in this small, privately printed edition (fig. 6.2), that Caignet’s poems have appeared in very few anthologies of poesía negra, and that his name has not been widely associated with Afrocubanismo .2 Other factors also help to explain Caignet’s virtual exclusion from the annals of so-called black poetry in Latin America. First, Caignet never really considered himself to be an accomplished poet. In fact, he gave most of the credit for the popularity of his verse to Cosme, for whom Figure 6.1. Program for an April 1936 recital of poesía negra by Eusebia Cosme. (Eusebia Cosme Papers. Manuscripts, Archives, and Rare Books Division. Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture. The New York Public Library.) Figure 6.2. First edition of Felix B. Caignet’s only book of poetry, A golpe de maracas : Poemas negros en papel mulato (1950). The cover illustration is by Caignet. (Author’s collection.) Felix B. Caignet’s Response to Carnival Controversy in Santiago de Cuba · 163 he wrote several of his poems. The following passage from a 1936 letter to the famed declamadora clearly underscores Caignet’s debt to Cosme: En tí Eusebia palpita algo que no palpita frecuentemente en los artistas nuestros: y ese algo es tu cubanismo, no en la forma vulgar de una banderita y un himno, sino el cubanismo puro, espontáneo, que surge de tu arte pleno de personalidad. De ahí que yo diga siempre, haciéndote justicia, que el 90 por ciento del mito de mis versos está en tu interpretación. Yo francamente soy un diez por ciento de poeta . ¡Mis versos lo son cuando los dices tú! (Caignet, “Letter”) [In you Eusebia pulsates something that does not pulsate frequently in our artists: that something is your Cubanness, not in the common form of a little flag and a hymn, but a pure, spontaneous Cubanness, that surges from your art that is full of personality. That is why I always say, giving you your just deserts, that 90 percent of the myth of my poems is in your interpretation of them. Frankly, I am just ten percent poet. My verses are verses when you recite them!] ItisalsoimportanttopointoutthatwhateverfameCaignet’scomparatively scant poetic production—just over twenty poems—achieved through recitals by Cosme was almost entirely eclipsed by the international...