21c Museum, in collaboration with Sarabande books, presents A Celebration of Cuban Poetry, November 7th 2011. Against the backdrop of theCuba Now exhibition at 21c Museum, which features artwork by over 90 contemporary Cuban artists, Cuban poet Marta Miranda will read her work in both Spanish and English. Jeremy Dae Paden will join her with a tribute to famed Cuban poet Reinaldo Arenas, whose work has served as the inspiration behind Hugo Moro’s La Capilla de Los Palos, currently on display at 21c Museum. We’ll also be treated to live music by Alberto Abril and Luis Orlando Lopez. 21c and Sarabande books have collaborated on the monthly poetry series since 2009.

About Marta Miranda
Marta Miranda emigrated with her family from Pinar del Rio, Cuba when she was 12. They settled in New Jersey during her childhood, and she lived and worked in Florida before moving to Kentucky 15 years ago. She proudly identifies herself as Cubalachian—Cuban by birth and Appalachian by the Grace of God. In addition to being an accomplished poet, she is the President/ CEO of The Center for Women and Families in Louisville, KY.

About Jeremy Dae Paden
On his mother’s side Jeremy Dae Paden is of Puerto Rican descent. He was born in Milan, Italy and largely raised in Central America and the Dominican Republic. He teaches Spanish at Transylvania University and is a member of the Affrilachian Poets. His poems have appeared inAtlanta Review, Limestone, Pluck!, the Tidal Basin Review, the Cortland Review, and the Beloit Poetry Review, among others.

About Hugo Moro’s La Capilla de Los Palos
La Capilla de Los Palos (The chapel of the sticks), 2005
Inscribed logs, pillows, wood shelves
An homage to Reinaldo Arenas, based on Arenas’ novel Celestino Antes Del Alba
Recited by River Fuchs
Courtesy of the artist

A tribute to famed Cuban poet and novelist Reinaldo Arenas, Hugo Moro’s La Capilla de Los Palos is inspired by the spirit of the child protagonist in Arenas’ Celestino Antes Del Alba.

Denied means of expression in his own home, the novel’s young hero Celestino begins to carve his diary into tree trunks in order to hide them from his family. Unceremoniously chopped down by his illiterate grandfather, who views Celestino’s poetic sensibilities as both a threat to the family’s honor and an offense against their proudly machista culture, the child becomes victim of the kind of censorship and suppression experienced by Arenas during his own lifetime. Hugo Moro has recreated ‘the censored trunks’ as a both a homage to Reinaldo Arenas and to recognize the prejudices that still exist in Cuba today.

Originally a supporter of the revolution as a young man in the 1960s, Arenas became disillusioned with the regime in the ensuing decades. Branded a ‘social misfit’ because of his homosexuality, his novels went unpublished in his homeland, despite receiving acclaim abroad. In 1970, Arenas was censured for ‘ideological deviation’ and was sent to a labor camp to cut sugar cane. After his second novel was smuggled out the country and published, he was imprisoned in Cuba for two years at the notorious El Morro Castle, where he was able to barter for paper to continue his writing in secret by composing love letters for the wives and girlfriends of his fellow inmates. After denouncing his writing, Arenas was released in 1976, and immigrated to the US in 1980, where he lived the last decade of his life. Arenas’ life story was made famous in 2000 in Julian Schnabel’s film Before Night Falls.

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