With the poem Respuesta exacta (Exact Answer), Miguel Mariano Piñero Martínez -from Las Tunas-, won the Clothesline Poetry Contest 2023, an award announced on the last day of the Catauro de la Décima (Décima Basket); one of the most liked spaces of the Cucalambeana Fiesta, which from June 28 to July 2 brought together cultivators of traditions from various Cuban territories and eight nations.
Las Tunas, Cuba.- A painting by the plastic artist Gustavo Polanco was delivered as a prize to Piñero, who is president of the National Group of Rural Writers G-NERarte, member of Ala Décima, and winner of the Cucalambé Award (written décima) with his collection of poems Immutaciones del Solitario (2014).
Miguel Mariano is a complete rhapsode and, beyond his literary work, he has traditionally been concerned with cultivating in the new generations (and in adults as well) a love for literature and, especially, for the national stanza; even from San José, an intricate community in the municipality of Colombia, where he lives and is respected.
In the recently concluded Supreme Guateque of the Cuban Peasantry, he also served as a member of the jury of the Justo Vega Contest (improvised décima), obtained a mention in the Canto alrededor del Punto national contest of glosses, and presented a paper at one of the theoretical events, co-authored with Marcelo Leal Moreno.
Upon learning of the result of the Poesía de Cordel competition (Clothesline Poetry), he commented to 26: "I feel very excited because it is a prize for effort. I am working hard and I will continue to do so for the décima, which one day was a kind of Cinderella in literature, always occupies the place it deserves on the pedestal of Cuban culture."
The Clothesline Poetry Contest comes to reaffirm these efforts, which has the singularity of being held during the days of the "Cucalambeana", naming it that way because it alludes to sheets of paper with written poems, which are hung from a clothesline or string -by using clothespins- so that people come by and read the texts.
