# Bonifacio Byrne Puñales

**Date of birth:** March 3, 1861

**Date of death:** July 5, 1936

**Categories:** Patriot, literature, Arts, Society

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Cuban poet, born in Matanzas. After a youthful period of initiation into modernist poetry, he became, from 1896 onward, the interpreter of his people's enthusiasm and anguish in their struggle for independence from the Spanish crown.

He completed his studies in Matanzas. From adolescence he had an inclination toward literature. In 1890 he founded the newspapers La Mañana and La Juventud Liberal. He published his first book of verses in 1893.

A few years later, in 1896, he had to emigrate to the United States after publishing his sonnets on the occasion of the execution of Domingo Mejía.

In exile he dedicated himself to separatist efforts and founded the Club Revolucionario in Tampa, of which he was secretary.

During his stay in that Florida city he worked as a reader in tobacco factories and collaborated in Patria, El Porvenir, and El Expedicionario.

He returned to Cuba in 1899. During the republican period he was secretary of the Provincial Government of Matanzas and of the Provincial Superintendency of Schools.

In 1909 he founded the newspaper El Yucayo. He collaborated in La Primavera, El Ateneo, Diario de Matanzas, El Fígaro, and La Discusión.

He was declared an Eminent Son of Matanzas in 1915. That same year he moved to New York to restore his impaired health.

He obtained poetic awards at the Juegos Florales of Sancti Spíritus (1916) and Matanzas (1934). He was a founding member of Grupo Índice (1935). He was a corresponding member of the National Academy of Arts and Letters.

A large number of his poetic compositions remained unpublished or grouped in a well-deserved anthology. Raimundo Lazo calls him "the last patriotic poet of colonial times."

Since the publication in 1897 in the American city of Philadelphia of the poetry collection Efigies, composed of patriotic sonnets, this author is considered, due to the great acceptance of that work, as one of the poets of the Spanish-Cuban War.