Reina María Rodríguez

These poems were originally published in Reina María Rodríguez’ 1998 book, La foto del invernadero (The Photo of the Greenhouse), with which she won her second Casa de las Américas prize. Previously she published numerous collections, winning not only her first Casa de las Américas prize (in 1984) but also Cuba’s Julián del Casal and National Critics’ prizes and Mexico’s Plural award for poetry. Today Rodríguez continues to live and work in Havana. She is known not only as a poet but as the host of an important alternative cultural salon: for two decades her home has been both a private and a public space. Intellectuals gather at her rooftop apartment, the azotea, to present work and discuss their ideas with a degree of freedom not always found in official cultural institutions. Although she states that the departures of many fellow intellectuals have affected the level of cultural activity on the island, Rodríguez continues to seek new challenges and opportunities. She now works with Antón Arrufat to edit their new magazine about poetry and poetics, Azoteas.