MIAMI, United States. – Last Wednesday, the Cuban writer Legna Rodríguez Iglesias presented her bilingual anthology (Spanish and Italian) I don’t believe in poetry in the gallery ID Art Labin Miami.
The presentation, organized by Alliteration Publishing, the publishing label behind the new edition, included the participation of the renowned poet and storyteller Queen Maria RodriguezNational Award for Literature of Cuba.
The anthology, translated into Italian by Silvio Mignano, is a collection of poems selected from Rodríguez’s most outstanding works, such as Chicle, Fertilizing Truce, Thread + Thread, Give me spray, Title, Miami Century Fox and My bald partner and I are having a childin addition to eight unpublished poems.
Alliteration Publishing has rated the publication as I don’t believe in poetry as “an opportunity to cover the empty years of the Annual Commonplace Poetry Award.” The award aims to disseminate relevant voices from various communities through their translation into other languages and encourage cultural and literary exchange.
For Rodríguez Iglesias, this release marks an important milestone in his career, being his first presentation in several years. “Since the beginning of the pandemic, he has not published any books,” he confessed to the magazine Rialta.
The inspiration for the anthology came during a jamming virtual poetry organized by Venezuelan poets. In the meeting, Rodríguez reflected on the selection process of the poems included in the anthology. “I did not select the poems. The translator and the publisher did. I sent some of my books and some unpublished poems. I did not send all my published books, I excluded the worst ones, in my opinion”.
The parts included in I don’t believe in poetry They examine topics such as history, the figure of women, sexuality, politics, generational conflicts, emigration and motherhood.
“My poetry has matured, in the playful sense, because it is impossible to spend your life playing, in the poem I mean,” Rodríguez shared. “In an age where political correctness is the law, I think my poems continue to transgress things.”
A resident of Miami for several years, the Cuban poet has made a significant contribution to the island’s literary landscape, and has been awarded prizes such as the Julio Cortázar Ibero-American Short Story Award (2011), the Casa de Las Américas de Teatro (2016 ) and the Centrifugados de Poesía Joven (2019).
