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CUBA UNITES US
Danny Rivera finances book on the
Five
BY MIREYA CASTAÑEDA —Granma
International staff writer—
“HERE is Nos une Cuba (Cuba Unites Us) by
young writer Reynier Carvajal, a book of life, of
the soul, with a poetic thread and letters exchanged
with the five Cuban heroes cruelly imprisoned in the
United States,” affirmed the great Puerto Rican
singer Danny Rivera, thanks to whom the book has
been published.
The
interpreter of memorable songs (who can fail to be
moved by his “Madrigal”?) expressly traveled to
Havana for the launch of the book (Editorial
Makarios) and, during a beautiful event in the
Villena Room of the National Union of Writers and
Artists of Cuba (UNEAC) headquarters, recalled how
he came to meet Reynier. “The first time I saw him
come into my office (at the International Faculty
for Music and Art which has its headquarters here),
I looked into his eyes and saw a special light that
shone with greatness and timidity.”
“Of
all the texts that I read,” he affirmed, “my
attention was fixed on the lengthy correspondence
that young Reynier had maintained with the Cuban
heroes imprisoned in the United States, who have
been handed down long sentences. Sentences that are
unjust and implausible in a country that is said to
boast the most just and perfect democracy on the
planet and that is threatening to destroy to
thousand-year old codes of art and well-being and
transform the humane planet into a new jail system
on a worldwide level.”
Danny Rivera described these letters, verses,
postcards and commentaries that Reynier had
organized into book form, and that took him back to
a similar experience, “when I was imprisoned over
the issue of Vieques (the tiny island used for more
than 60 years by the U.S. Navy as a firing range and
which it was finally forced to vacate) for civil
disobedience,” he told this journalist at the end of
the event.
A
singer and songwriter first and foremost, he
performed the song “Para las madres” (For Mothers),
accompanied by young musicians trained at the
Faculty. Danny Rivera told the press that he had
composed it “about a year ago, not for me, but for
everyone, especially the mothers who have sacrificed
everything for their children, those who have been
jailed for political reasons, injustice. There are
those from the Plaza de Mayo in Argentina, those of
the Five, and the list goes on. There are many
mothers working for the release of their sons and
daughters.”
“Para las madres” is a simple song, but with
tremendous strength in the music (which has an
Andalusian ring to it) and the lyrics (“I know how
to fly to meet you” and for the chorus “I wait all
my life/because with her we’ll win/the impossible”).
With
his magnificent voice, Danny Rivera sang before the
mothers of Tony Guerrero and Fernando González, the
eldest daughter of Ramón Labañino, and relatives of
René González and Gerardo Hernández.
Also
present at the event were Parliamentary President
Ricardo Alarcón, Culture Minister Abel Prieto and
UNEAC President Carlos Martí.
The
launch was led by poet Alex Pausides, who affirmed:
“The case of the five Cubans subjected to outrageous
sentences in the United States has been gaining
strength in the consciousness of the world. A
feeling of warm solidarity has led to the creation
of a movement that sooner rather than later will
return them to freedom. There is also their own
work, undertaken in the most absolute solitude and
the letters exchanged with children and young
people.”
And
he took Reynier Carvajal’s book from the hand of
Danny Rivera. “His writing,” explained Pausides,
“comes from emotion, from the truth. This book is an
ark of vocation. In it we find the testimony of
lives that the empire has been unable to crush,
because there is no jail that can prevent love from
being exercised. Cuba nos une makes us think
of those who aren’t there, those who are deep inside
our hearts.”
For
young Reynier, this is his first book and he says in
the prologue: “I have tried with humility and
sincerity for each poem, song, text, and received or
sent letter that I display, to offer the purest
sentiment which awaits like a reward for the return
(of the Five) to their homeland.”
Reynier shares with readers his letters from Tony
Guerrero. In one of them, he tells him: “Your poems
demonstrate your human sensibility, your
intelligence, your revolutionary convictions and
your profound feelings towards the just cause of our
liberation.”
But
they also exchange poems. “Firme y romántico”
(Strong and Romantic) was written by Tony “in total
isolation in a cell in the so-called “hole” at the
Florecen penitentiary in Colorado” and he adds that
“thoughts can never be locked up.”
“Madre que ya no estás” (Mother, now that you’re not
here) is by Ramón Labañino and he sent it to Reynier
because “I believe that you should respond to a poem
with a poem,” and Gerardo, artist and humorist, also
wrote to him: “For our brother poet¼.with thanks for
your beautiful inspirations, and the solidarity that
has always accompanied us in this fight for truth
and justice.”
Danny Rivera commented at the launch for Cuba nos
une that he is hoping that poetry will be the
thread of solidarity with respect to the Five.
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