Ringside with Cuba’s National Poet

Nicolás Guillén’s “Pequeña oda a Kid Chocolate,” written in the late 1920s, is not only the celebrated Cuban author’s first “black poem,” but also foreshadows several central themes of his long career. Some themes include the praise and defense of Afro-diasporic vernacular culture and Cuban popular culture more generally, and the denunciation of US socioeconomic bullying on the island. Guillén’s ode casts the illiterate featherweight champion boxer Kid Chocolate as an allegorical protagonist in the drama of Cuba’s relationship to its colossal northern neighbor and establishes ties between pugilistic and poetic arts as related arms for defending the Caribbean nation and its sovereignty. His use of apostrophe, linguistic sparring, and symbols of Cuban self-defense against Roosevelt’s ‘big stick’ policy constitutes an assertive poetic challenge to existing literary canons and prevailing political proclivities in the wake of the Platt Amendment. With this small ode, Guillén invites Cuban and non-Cuban readers alike to join him ringside for an impressive show of national pride by the poet and the pugilist.