I had previously read something by Jorge García Prieto (Havana, Cuba, 1979), better known as Poe Cid. But I didn't have to read much to know myself before a complete poet. His thematic acuity, those metaphors coming from who knows where, the play on words- synesthesia- sane-fluid madness, so many things, reaffirmed to me that I was before an author of necessary research.
Las Tunas, Cuba.- Confirmation came at the last Las Tunas Book Fair when he came with his muse Lely Carrasco (another visceral and winged being) to unstitch from verse the complex reality that floods us. I am not surprised at all that he is the winner of the Cucalambé national contest of written décima. There are titles that, in a certain way, have been present in the collective consciousness before, even without knowing it, although it is always gratifying that a member of the jury at the level of Carlos Esquivel (Nicolás Guillén Poetry Prize) speaks of a quality not seen in a while in a literary contest in Cuba and catalogs the notebook Desheredades, among the 26 presented, with the adjective "huge."
Synergistic, like the pseudonym with which he presented that text, Poe Cid marches disinherited from many things (perhaps material, or of another nature), but with a legacy of universal authors who unconsciously accompany him. This poet, artisan, and cultural promoter was a finalist in the 2020 Cucalambé contest and the prediction of success that predicted going on the right track did not make him wait for him to climb to the podium. The time has come for everyone to see the poet -from Havana, universal, and ours-, who from the humility of knowing himself to be the owner of a bittersweet trade, stirs up the essences of life itself.
I ask him on WhatsApp what he felt knowing he owned a laurel with the smell of a Supreme Bard and he -still nervous about the news that he does not believe- replies: “…it is very difficult for me to describe the emotions that I felt, and still feel. From humility, I have always tried to honor my elders.”
“My love for the verse was born very early, from the time when I attended the literary workshop of Mercedes Melo Pereira, not only a teacher but also a spiritual guide. Facing new readings, new conceptions of the décima, reading until exhaustion, until memorizing, smearing hundreds of pages..." Thus, the path to the inspiring light was made.
"Many of the authors who have previously obtained this award (they do not suspect how much) went verse by verse changing my way of looking at the world, they changed my life," he confesses with total simplicity, despite having published the subsidized Poems books ( La Pereza, USA, 2013), Errático animal (Montecallado, 2018) and El lado sano de la lágrima (Ediciones Laponia, USA, 2019), in addition to appearing in various anthologies and magazines. It tastes great (he doesn't suspect how much), and that speaks volumes about him.
He tells me that the "Cucalambé" winning collection of poems moves in the register of social and family issues. "I conceived it as a walk, where the lyrical subject, a man of these chaotic times, full of doubts, screaming into the void. He is looking at his life in front of various scenarios. It is part of a trilogy: Heredades (Loynaz Award 2022), Desheredades, and Otras Heredades, all sung from everyday life and on foot, trying to feel the earth more than the sky.”
“It was a luxury jury for the recent literary competition, made up of three greats of our letters (Jesús David Curbelo, Carlos Esquivel, and Roberto Manzano), which further reaffirms me in the vocation of eternal apprentice and that of continue to believe in something that I once heard Manzano say: ‘Poetry is our last trench,’ Poe Cid says.
Jorge García Prieto directed the Municipal Literary Workshop of Arroyo Naranjo and has obtained various awards in literary contests, among which are the "Manuel Cofiño," in 2007; second place in the Rafaela Chacón Nardi national poetry contest, 2007; the Francisco Riverón Hernández national written décima award, 2017; being a finalist for the David Award, 2012; holding the Ciudad del Che Award, 2022; and deserving the Hermanos Loynaz Award, also that last calendar.
Reading the young man with a pseudonym that refers us to one of the great heroes of Spain (El Cid Campeador), to whom wrote a poem called "El Cuervo" (Edgar Allan Poe), and even the first three letters of the word "poetry," is reading on human skin those tattoos that the passage of time leaves on the papyrus of the soul. Simply, the process becomes a journey inside the human being, without masks, without fear.
