José Ángel Buesa y la impopularidad del éxito

• Published in: Cuban studies Vol. 38; no. 1; pp. 154 - 169
• Main Author: Firmat, Gustavo Perez
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: University of Pittsburgh Press 2007
• Subjects: Cuba; Emotions; Poetry; Scholarship
• ISSN: 0361-4441; 1548-2464; 1548-2464
• DOI: 10.1353/cub.2008.0016

Beloved by his readers but disdained by critics, Jose Angel Buesa (1910-1982) belongs to an exclusive club: that of poets who write best-sellers. Originally published in Havana in 1943 and reprinted countless times, his Oasis is one of the most widely read books of poetry in Spanish America, surpassed in popularity perhaps only by Pablo Neruda's Veinte poemas de amor y una cancion desesperada (1924). Nonetheless, scholars of Spanish-American poetry have paid scant attention to Buesa's work, dismissing it as sentimental and simple-minded. Through a discussion of his two best-known poems "Poema del renunciamiento" and "Poema de la despedida," this essay seeks to show that, in spite of his alleged cursileria, Buesa's best moments occur not when he distances himself from the poetry of feeling, but when he embraces it. His achievement is having found the means to express what he called "shareable emotions" in a language that though plain and accessible, is not only artful but artistic. Adapted from the source document.