THE ENVOY The official newsletter of the
Canada Cuba Literary Alliance I.S.S.N. – 1911‐0693
March, 2021 Issue 108 www.CanadaCubaLiteraryAlliance.org
WITH WORDS AND IMAGES, WE HOPE A Review of In Silence We Wait (Hidden Brook Press, 2021) MSc Miguel Olivé Iglesias Associate Professor. Holguín University, Cuba Author, Poet, Writer, Editor, Reviewer “… there was silence, and I heard a voice…” Job 5:16 “Rest in the Lord, and wait…” Psalms 37:7
One perceptive, indefatigable editor-designer, two sentient photographers and forty-three keen authors from eight countries on both hemispheres, present us their deeply felt elucidations of life as it happens in a Covidridden reality. Their rationale? To show the world their capacity to record for posterity, assume a duty, evolve, survive, struggle, and recolor our existence with unending hope and poeticalpictorial aesthetics. The title, in the editor´s words, came from the last poem in the collection, “Silence,” by Mark Walker, which not only filled Richard Grove´s need for a title but also entailed the book´s spirit of objective depiction, courage, beauty of expression and optimism sifted by each poet´s individual interpretation. Thus In Silence We Wait, Hidden Brook Press (HBP), 2021, is a collective, inspiring prayer where fine voices unite and share their anticipation of a better tomorrow.
MARCH 2021 THE ENVOY 108 – EDITOR- Jorge Alberto Pérez Hernández – joyphccla@gmail.com
After reading it, I positively felt the anthology proves and accomplishes two most praiseworthy points. Firstly, we are edified in its humane essence. Amidst the complex, sad developments today due to the pandemic, writers and artists take a stand to launch projects (read, for example, Devour. Art & Lit Canada, HBP magazine, Special issues) – conceived, led and sustained by Richard Grove – channeling their concerns and contributing through culture to humanity´s spiritual nourishment despite our predicaments. Consequently, we have on our side word and image to push forward with determination. Antony Di Nardo sums it up axiomatically, “Let’s stop at nothing and face the New Year. // … Something more to put into words.” Secondly, we are fascinated by the book´s “eloquent” silence and “active” wait. Every poem and picture tells us an articulate story. Each one becomes a resolute leap away from a “carnage behind / of crosses, coffins and corpses / covered with carrion / of broken promises / unfulfilled dreams / our mounds of hope / shattered by Covid’s ambush” vividly described by Lisa Makarchuk. Poems and pictures lighten our burden and turn into stepping stones towards hope. Read Anna Yin´s reflective lines: “In the night sky beyond the clouds, / we search for stars, reach for hope. / Some tours are doomed to detour, / some doors are destined to reopen.” Or visualize Poet Laureate John B. Lee´s sui generis surrealist treatment of imagery, as impressive and soul-lifting as a Dali or a Magritte: “as the candle breath of sundown / bends the soul / to shape the body from within / when water holds the contours / of a vase / both by a pouring in and a pouring out / of the consciousness of time.” In Silence We Wait is an antidote against the venom of Covid, a rediscovered fortitude to move confidently into the future. It is a healer in purpose, wording and image. I stated once: “… we seek peace and enlightenment reading… poetry and prose… The deep riddles of life and death must be decrypted by looking for and holding on to spiritual healing, and sheltering in human sympathies and love…” (Taken from The Envoy 084, June 2018) The editor was more than wise when he said in his Preface: “Somehow the entire world was placing a great significance of hope to the clock ticking into a new year.” That is how we must face what is happening and how we must look ahead of us. Words and images have fulfilled the noble duty of comforting our pain, setting our hopeful gazes into the ticking of the 2021 clock and beyond. -------------A promotional WORD ABOUT on what has been going on with the CCLA and general publishing plans for Hidden Brook Press, SandCrab Books and QuodSermo Publishing Richard Grove (Tai) is a hard-working, very busy kind of soul. I have never asked him how many books have been forged and made public with his publishing formats, how many authors have come to him and have been welcomed and published. When I entered his life, in 2016, I became aware of how much he has done for literature, art The Envoy 108
Page 2
MARCH 2021 THE ENVOY 108 – EDITOR- Jorge Alberto Pérez Hernández – joyphccla@gmail.com
and culture, especially Canadian and Cuban. Only in cooperation with my editorial and/or authorial renderings since that year, quite a few books have been born. The year 2020 was prolific for us in that area. 2021 and 2022 certainly look auspiciously productive too. Let´s take a brief peek at what has come out of his hands or will be appearing next: Solo poetry book Forge of Words / Fragua de palabras. 2020. Hidden Brook Press. 35 Literary reviews on 31 Canadian poets and prose writers: In a Fragile Moment: A Landscape of Canadian Poetry. 2020. Hidden Brook Press. Devour Magazine, Art & Lit Canada. ISSN 2561-1321 Issue 005. April 2020). E-book Anthology of Holguín Poets: These Voices Beating in our Hearts: Poems from the Valley (Estas voces latiendo en nuestros corazones: Poemas desde el valle). 2020. SandCrab Books. E-book Misula, The Story of a Little Heron (Misula, la historia de una garcita) by Adislenis Castro Ruiz. Hidden Brook Press. 2020. The Ambassador 016, 2020. www.HiddenBrookPress.com. www.CanadaCubaLiteraryAlliance.org. Devour Magazine, Art & Lit Canada. Issue 009. ISSN 2561-1321. September 2020. The Divinity of Blue. CCLA Visit to Cuba 2020. Hidden Brook Press. 2020. (ebook). Flying on the Wings of Poetry / Volando en las alas de la poesía. Hidden Brook Press. 2020. (ebook). Canadian anthology, Hearthbeat. Edited by Don Gutteridge [Poetry]. Hearthbeat / Poetry by 59 poets. Hidden Brook Press. First edition. 2020. (in English). ISBN 978-19897-86-22-2 Bridges Series Books, Book V (English-Spanish) The Heart Upon the Sleeve. Hidden Brook Press. Poetry anthology The Beauty of Being Elsewhere. Edited by John B. Lee. Hidden Brook Press. Pedagogical Sciences. The Teaching of Language and Literature, Education, Values, Patrimony and Applied IT. QuodSermo Publishing. Canada. The Light Candling the Mind: Critic and Author in Harmony. Essays and Reviews on Canadian Literature. QuodSermo Publishing. Canada. A Hand-full of Poetry: Appraising Canada´s Gems. James Deahl, John B. Lee, Don Gutter idge, Glen Sorestad, A. F. Moritz. Hidden Brook Press. Poetry book, This Pulse of Life, These Words I Found. SandCrab Books. 42 Reviews and Essays on 39 Canadian poets and prose writers, and published anthologies. A Shower of Warm Light Upon this Land and Us. Reviews and Essays on Canadian Poetry. Hidden Brook Press. Devour Magazine, Art & Lit Canada (special issue). Presented here are the front covers of some of the books/mags published in 2020 and more to come out during 2021 and 2022. All the front covers were conceived and designed by Richard Grove. The original pictures were taken by him, except the image in the Bridges Series Book, which is a painting by Cosme Proenza, a well-known Cuban artist, who gave his permission to publish his work in the book. All of the images were edited by Grove. The Envoy 108
Page 3
MARCH 2021 THE ENVOY 108 – EDITOR- Jorge Alberto Pérez Hernández – joyphccla@gmail.com
The Envoy 108
Page 4
MARCH 2021 THE ENVOY 108 – EDITOR- Jorge Alberto Pérez Hernández – joyphccla@gmail.com
---------------EXERCISING AND WRITING IN COVID TIMES! by The Envoy Assistant Editor and CCLA Cuba President, Miguel Olivé Iglesias During these difficult COVID times many Cubans, like me, have chosen to walk to and from work every day either to avoid the crowded buses or because local transportation has been cancelled. My campus is a give-or-take 45-minute walk from home I try to profit from it as a wonderful physical, mental and spiritual exercise. Below, a picture I took as I strolled in the wee hours of morning. I sent it to Richard Grove (Tai), who poured his creative and artistic genius onto it. From the Tai-Miguel collaboration picture we share here with The Envoy readers, came a collaborative poem too. COVID days are tense and daunting but have also fostered our determination to not let them rob us of our hope and creativity. Enjoy then poem and picture.
In Memory (collaboration poem Miguel Olivé and Richard Grove)
Here is a pic of one of the places I pass The Envoy 108
Page 5
MARCH 2021 THE ENVOY 108 – EDITOR- Jorge Alberto Pérez Hernández – joyphccla@gmail.com
walking on my way to college on these cool covid no-public transport days. The place is a place of places as my dear professor Manuel would say. It is the cemetery of Holguin, some 40-minute walk from where I live, only 5 more spring-step minutes to my work. Before me, pristine plots laid out in geometric perfection shrouded by draping trees shadowing the resting. Here, among the many, is buried one of the doyens of teaching from my former Teacher Training College days, Alberto Medina Betancourt. His name appears on my dedication page in my pedagogical sciences book. Such a great man, cultivated, like my former professor Manuel Velázquez León. Two dear friends. This morning I tried to take pics of the sunrise through the pine trees sliding across eternity, glancing off the white tombstones of mortality. I witness the eternal sun rising. After one or two shots, my camera refused to operate preventing me from capturing the sanctity of the moment. Serenity gently clutched my heart. Maybe it is just as well that this millisecond is left only in memory…
The Envoy 108
Page 6
MARCH 2021 THE ENVOY 108 – EDITOR- Jorge Alberto Pérez Hernández – joyphccla@gmail.com
Photo taken by Miguel Olivé and edited by Richard Grove ---------------
Sweet Hometown To Bayamo, my hometown
by Miguel Ángel Olivé Iglesias There´s nostalgia buried deep inside me, and burning as I walk around my hometown: the schools I went to, some rotted down and being rebuilt some transfigured into offices some still standing, gnawed by time. I take mental pictures as I stroll down the cobbled streets people swarming about vendors accosting you in ways so opposite to how it used to be some forty-seven years ago with “classic,” well-mannered street vendors, chivalrous treatment, the reverence of the scissor sharpener to turn my grandmother into a regular client or the newspaper boy´s acrobatics to win my grandfather´s interest and pocket. The Envoy 108
Page 7
MARCH 2021 THE ENVOY 108 – EDITOR- Jorge Alberto Pérez Hernández – joyphccla@gmail.com
My hometown´s time-honored past of torches and anthems still smokes in the old plazas and the looming churches in the frieze-packed, monument-decorated brick parks, likenesses and statues of heroes that watch over the town dreaming of glorious battles and victories or defeats while I pace on and reminisce on my childhood years my first home, my bed, my books the feast that was the love of dad and mom the serenades and bowls full of chocolate bonbons. My hometown perspires along with me, a conspiracy that sounds good and warming and speaks of joy and discovery and wild yet innocent pranks, boys’ and girls’ free spirits running down the streets exploring life as it came encountering sex and love, a ride to last for a lifetime and change us all no guilt attached, no inhibitions, young birds taking flight born of a pristine town so proud of her historic legacy born to make her proud again and again. My hometown welcomes me she knows I am her offspring, and opens silent invisible portals that I cross. She offers shelter for she knows I no longer have my home my old sweet home lost in the mist of yesterday stout witness of my innocence, my youth, my yester loves. She soothes me and leads me to the riverbank, near the church – near God – from where justifiable battles were fought, victories sought losses redeemed with sacrifice and fire and ashes. There´s nostalgia surfacing from within me in flames that remind us of the deeds, the glory, the grandeur of my hometown my sweet hometown. Note: My hometown is called Bayamo. The name is aboriginal and comes from the original settlement of natives around a tree called the “bayam”, a tree with alleged magical powers. In the beginnings of the Ten-year War against Spain (19th century), the “mambises,” Cuban patriots, battled for and conquered the town. But the Spanish Crown would not allow that for too long and prepared a powerful army to re-conquer it. News spread of the powerful army and the impossibility of keeping the town, so the people of Bayamo decided to burn the whole town to the ground (January 12, 1869) before letting it fall back into Spanish hands. They headed to the mountains nearby, and the powerful army could only repossess smoking ruins and ashes of a once beautiful, flourishing town. The Cuban National Anthem was written during those early days of mambí control of the town, written on horseback by one of Bayamo´s most illustrious patriots, Perucho Figueredo, and sung by the people in situ. The opening stanza goes: “Al combate corred, bayameses” (“Engage in battle, people of Bayamo!”). Bayamo is acknowledged as the cradle of Cuban nationhood. (revised version originally published in The ENVOY 075, the official newsletter of the CCLA I.S.S.N. – 1911‐0693 June, 2016 Issue 075)
The Envoy 108
Page 8
MARCH 2021 THE ENVOY 108 – EDITOR- Jorge Alberto Pérez Hernández – joyphccla@gmail.com
Bayam To Bayamo, my hometown
by Miguel Ángel Olivé Iglesias But I… will sing of this. Patrick Lane Memories stored. Stella Ducker
Under the spell of the Bayam tree danger subsides, fierce animals are appeased. I travel in time, contemplate the original site where my hometown first stood. Proud. Bayam. The magic tree, aboriginal and mambí voices still echo in the streets, loyal flames embrace Bayamo. Proudly the Homeland watches* a line of men, women, children heading for the mountains nearby. Proud. Bayamo burned to the ground. Spaniards conquer ashes and embers only ashes and embers, proud ashes and embers. Long live a free Cuba!
* Line taken from the Bayamo Anthem
(revised version originally published in the Bridges Series Books IV, “Where the Heart Lies” / “Donde late el corazón”, SandCrab Books, 2018)
MIGUEL ÁNGEL OLIVÉ IGLESIAS Sundays are kind of heavy
(Any similarities with actual people or events are most probably coincidental)
Sundays are kind of heavy. Sundays laze around in porches; they let the sun fry their hours then let the clouds band-aid their boredom blisters with cotton and a sprinkle of rain. Men ally with Sundays: they twiddle their thumbs, snooze, wallow in doldrums´ sty in joy because they are resting after a hard week´s toil – at work, as being at home lays on their shoulders another full set of chores. Women take a break from their hectic modified-duty day doing the laundry, cleaning the house, asking their husbands to change the bathroom´s lamp; but there´s no lamp to replace it with, asking them to fix the sink tap but there´s no tool, no tap, much less a new sink, in the blockade-stricken market (Well, maybe in the black market but DAMN, these 2021 prices!) Black day. Dark bathroom. Wet kitchen floor. The Envoy 108
Page 9
MARCH 2021 THE ENVOY 108 – EDITOR- Jorge Alberto Pérez Hernández – joyphccla@gmail.com
Monday is around the corner: back to work, to the ungreased rotary of COVID days out there. Back to the elusive-food crusade, to the burnt-out lamp and the leaking tap... Yeah, Sundays are kind of heavy.
Vision (originally inspired by a scene in Chaplin´s 1931 City Lights)
by Miguel Ángel Olivé Iglesias
… your hair is like royal tapestry. Song of Songs 7:5 Your hair… torrents of desire. Henry Beissel
It was your hair, flower-like behind the show window, and I, moved, watching you knowing beforehand light would stream from you in a gift of strands, buds and crystal reflections. You didn´t notice me at first (how could you), I didn´t talk to you. It was just an instant, a fleeting vision: the privilege of touching you with my eyes of daydreaming where I tenderly tousled your hair you consented and held my hand, the marvel of your life crossing my silence, my eyes open wide desire intertwined with a perfumed stroke of the locks of your hair. ---------------A new writer visits our pages today, Diane Taylor. Let´s welcome her among our pages and enjoy the story she sent to the Editors for consideration. Diane Taylor has written two books, one about writing a memoir, and one about living aboard a sailboat. She lived for three years in the Turks and Caicos Islands where she grew algae to feed baby conch. She gives a course on memoir writing to encourage people to leave behind memories and love for future generations.
Cuban Currencies by Diane Taylor It was after five o’clock and Calle Obispo, empty an hour earlier, was filled with people, mostly young. It was the after-work crowd with a few elementary school kids in navy school uniforms
The Envoy 108
Page 10
MARCH 2021 THE ENVOY 108 – EDITOR- Jorge Alberto Pérez Hernández – joyphccla@gmail.com
mixed in. Here and there, items for sale hung in doorways of small shops – straw baskets, lacquered maracas, yellow scarves, beaded bracelets made of bone or wood. Occasionally a pedi cab, or bicicab, or 1955 taxi cab, or even an ultramodern 2005 model pushed a slow path through the unrushed throng. I was a visitor on the most upscale street of Old Havana. I had just negotiated a good price for a silver ring in the small market place of thirty or so vendors. These rings are made from the top two or three inches of an old decorative silver spoon or fork, and wrap around the finger. I tried one on. Perfect fit. Although I could see from the sign that the rings were three CUCs (convertible pesos issued to tourists), I wanted to have some discussion with the young sales woman, black curly hair resting on her shoulders. “Cuánto cuesta?” I asked. How much? “Tres pesos por uno, o cinco por dos,” she said. I looked at the beautiful ring, contemplated what she said. “Dos por uno?” I offered her, having heard that Cubans barter. “No, tres por uno.” I should be more assertive, I decided, so firmly said, “Dos por uno.” She agreed! But I was feeling that perhaps I had talked her into too low a price. After all, two pesos is one third less than three pesos. I found three ten-cent centavos coins in my wallet, and dropped all five coins into her palm – the two CUCs and the three ten-cent centavos. About two dollars and thirty cents. Quickly she picked out the centavos and placed them in the palm of my left hand, then curled my fingers over them. She smiled a smile that meant she was pleased with the original agreement. I smiled. We were both happy with the mutual giving. She had made a good sale. And I was becoming a good Cuban. You have to keep reminding yourself of the two currencies in Cuba to realize the real value of two dollars. The average Cuban makes between ten and twenty-five Canadian dollars a month. Two dollars is approximately equivalent to four days’ income. I continued walking up Obispo towards the Malecon, the 7-kilometre seawall that served to protect the city from the French and English, amidst the hundreds of people. Suddenly, a short and weightless woman walking in my direction veered slightly to approach me. Her eyes were clear and black, her face brown, cheeks hollow. Was she 50? 60? 70? The ghost of a smile played about her lips. She was wearing a grey cotton skirt that hung limply to her knees, a white blouse with short sleeves, and she carried a thin bag made of woven string that hung from her right shoulder down to her hips. She stopped in front of me, holding my eyes with hers, and this stopped me, too. The world fell away. It was just her and me. “Tiene usted algo para mi?” she asked, her smile creeping into her cheeks. Do you have anything for me? Her air was confident – she seemed certain my bag, about the same size as hers, would have something for her. It did! When I was packing my leather shoulder bag for my trip into Havana, although I wanted to travel light and keep the trip easy for myself, at the last minute I had placed a tube of toothpaste in the bottom in case I ran into someone in need. A friend in Canada had given me a lot of toothpaste to bring with me because she knew that it was very expensive in Cuba, if it was even available.
The Envoy 108
Page 11
MARCH 2021 THE ENVOY 108 – EDITOR- Jorge Alberto Pérez Hernández – joyphccla@gmail.com
“Si. Tengo algo para usted,” I nodded, yes I have something for you, and began feeling in my bag for the smooth plastic tube. Her smile broadened, her eyes danced. Her excitement was palpable as I felt around in my bag for the gift. Then my fingers found it, and as I pulled it out she could just hardly wait to see what was going to emerge. I took my time. When she saw it was a tube of toothpaste, her arms pumped up and down a few times in delight. “Oh,” she said, “no tengo!” I don’t have any! She slipped it into her bag and beamed at me. I touched her shoulder, smiled. And that was it. She moved past me. Feels like Christmas, I thought, this giving. I felt like Santa. Or Robin Hood. Or Mother Theresa. Or Che. Or a human being. A member of the human family. That was it. She could have been my mother, my daughter, my sister. I turned around, watched her figure float down the street, skirt swirling around her knees. Two currencies in Cuba? No, three. The peso, the dollar, the human. ----------What I Do for a Living by Patrick Connors I sell Japanese-inspired Chinese-manufactured German engineered Malaysian-printed Honduran-designed American-owned Canadian distributed no one knows what it's for.
photo taken and edited by Jorge Alberto The Envoy 108
Page 12
MARCH 2021 THE ENVOY 108 – EDITOR- Jorge Alberto Pérez Hernández – joyphccla@gmail.com
Before I Drown in Golden Pond by Lisa Makarchuk I don’t pee when I sneeze Enjoy shooting the breeze I don’t lose my keys Crosswords done with ease Interested in birds and bees Enrapturing my life with blossoms and trees When I breathe there’s not a wheeze I control the pain in my knees. In a crowd I’m the eminence grise On final accounts I’ve paid all my fees Climbing my ladder of life Its last rung’s in sight In embrace do I seize My family, my friends Political pals, enemies Wielding each day as I please
Pain by Lisa Makarchuk unsuspectingly it comes stalking pythonesque, it envelops and wraps the body exhaling, breathless, the soul gnarls; lights grow dim waves of anguish wash over drowning it in repeated wakes of rued memory-soaked burdens thrown upon shores of unresolved doubts through new prisms being viewed encouraging hope, rising in flickers sparking into resolute glow waiting as time lays a healing hand and experience alters whatever we know
The Envoy 108
Page 13
MARCH 2021 THE ENVOY 108 – EDITOR- Jorge Alberto Pérez Hernández – joyphccla@gmail.com
How Deep the Water Goes
by John B. Lee
the ducks are sleeping on the silver surface of the lake six or seven mallard drakes their heads turned tailward their bills tucked in their feathered wings they float upon the still reflection of themselves as though upon the mirror of a shining marble floor the morning light transformed to blackness by the muddy water’s darkening bed and if they dream perhaps within their dream they mark the walking man his dog and wife for them it matters much or not at all how deep the water goes
Nature’s Needlepoint
by Kimberley Elizabeth Grove
The view from my cabin window is Nature’s large empty cloth. White as this page, winter lingers. Brittle frosted branches begin the lines and angles etching a rough gray sketch with the needle’s single trail. Spring’s streaks of lightning startle any artist’s hand as the rumbling thunder like distant fireworks The Envoy 108
Page 14
MARCH 2021 THE ENVOY 108 – EDITOR- Jorge Alberto Pérez Hernández – joyphccla@gmail.com
warns that the belly of the sky will open. The artist’s cloth is rinsed through before jungle shades of green begin to border the scene. Then the whistle of a camouflaged thrush pierces the air; the sound struggles, reaching for sunlight to signal summer’s lazy days. Bright yellow daffodils worship the sun while lilacs perfume the air. Roses, lilies and tulips sew more colour into the fabric. She adds the hundreds of leaves that will crumple underfoot like worn paper bags. The height of colour woven into Her work, She applies some final touches, blowing away unnecessary edges or redoing ugly patches. A sewn-in signature like the branding of a great creature, the artisan stands back with me to survey the masterpiece.
In the Glory of Divine Love by Richard M. Grove
March 03, 2021 From Tai to Adis: It is 8am and the sun is shining gloriously, streaming in, across our window sill filled with our twelve or fifteen smiling plants, spilling the joy of now across the wall, warming more than half way into the apartment. Every corner is filled with love. Even at this moment at my computer, in my small windowless office light reaches even under my desk. If the penetrating sunlight can reach every corner then so can God's love for you reach every crevice of your being. The Envoy 108
Page 15
MARCH 2021 THE ENVOY 108 – EDITOR- Jorge Alberto Pérez Hernández – joyphccla@gmail.com
From Adis to Tai: Very nice what you write to me dear Tai. We have a wonderful day here too. Even my Gibara house on the hill, comes the smell of fresh salt air and mollusks from the distant sea. The calm ocean and the sparrows stir, arguing over a crumb of bread. In the distance you can hear a rooster singing his kikiriki out of tune. Nature is wonderful. How many mysteries it contains! I thank God for creating such a perfect world
MASTHEAD – Jorge Alberto Pérez Hernández our Cuban CCLA Ambassador as Editor – Miguel Ángel Olivé Iglesias our Cuban President as Assistant Editor – Adonay Pérez Luengo our Cuban VP as Reviewing Editor – Lisa Makarchuk our Canadian VP as Reviewing Editor – Miriam Estrella Vera Delgado our Cuban Poet Laureate as Reviewing Editor
joyph@nauta.cu joyphccla@gmail.com jorgealbertoph@infomed.sld.cu
CANADA CUBA LITERARY ALLIANCE FROM THE EDITOR: IN OUR UPCOMING ISSUES, WOULD LIKE SUBMISSIONS FROM EVERY CCLA MEMBER SO WE ARE NURTURED BY YOU! IF YOU HAVE BOOKS COMING OUT, A POETRY EVENT, JUST LET US KNOW! The Envoy 108
Page 16