Jesús Orta Ruiz

Cuban poet, journalist, and literary researcher. One of the highest voices of the décima in Cuba. National Literature Prize. National Community Culture Prize.

Jesús Orta Ruiz was born in Guanabacoa, province of La Habana, within a peasant family conservative of traditions and folklore of Spanish origin in the Cuban countryside. From this came the starting point of his poetic vocation, which manifested itself early, necessarily being the décima, folklorized in the singing of Cuban peasants. From nine years of age he was already improvising.

In 1934, upon finishing primary school, he had to interrupt his studies to work in various trades: shepherd, shoemaker apprentice, or shop clerk.

As an adolescent he began to gain the popularity that would become legendary for the poetry and music of the Cuban countryside. In that tradition he is identified with the pseudonym El Indio Naborí, a nickname that recalls the aboriginal who worked the land in opposition to popular singers who at that time called themselves caciques. He also used other pseudonyms such as Jesús Ribona, Juan Criollo, or Martín de la Hoz.

Not content with the gift of improvisation given by nature and the environment in which he was born and raised, he developed an obsessive passion for reading and studying poetry, both from the most outstanding authors and from the art of meter and versification, an activity that led him to the enrichment of the décima espinela, already converted into a sign of Cuban national identity.

Literary criticism was not slow in recognizing his merit in achieving the fusion of popular and learned registers, which positioned him tangentially to the so-called "neopopularism" of the Spanish Generation of '27. On this subject, researcher José Forné comments: "At the end of the 1940s, neopopularism was declining in Spain, weakened by a growing folklorism that began to be taken as an aesthetic. In Cuba, where the same had not occurred, that curious movement prolonged its existence. Suffice it to say that by the 1950s, Nicolás Guillén, Emilio Ballagas, Roberto Fernández Retamar and other notable poets addressed the peasant theme in renewed décimas."

In 1939 he joined the Unión Revolucionaria Party, in whose ranks he met intellectuals such as Juan Marinello, Mirta Aguirre, Nicolás Guillén, Manuel Navarro Luna, Raúl Ferrer Pérez and others, who influenced his political and literary formation. That same year he began his work as a trovador and radio writer at the station Progreso Cubano (now Radio Progreso).

In 1949 he married Eloína Pérez Collazo, who was his lifelong companion and one of the illuminating motives of his work.

Jesús Orta Ruiz followed a path of permanent renewal that led him to significantly broaden the horizon of his poetry through the practice of the most varied classical forms, and even free verse.

In general, three routes or thematic-compositional zones can be distinguished in his work: that of peasant roots, linked to the experience of the peasant, the rural landscape and the set of myths, legends and stories associated with folklore; that of social orientation, concerned with confronting inequalities, workers' struggles, the construction of a new society, the praise of social leaders; and one of autobiographical character, in which a prominent place is occupied by the thematization of couple love, as well as those elements that compose for the poet a horizon of honesty, kindness, and human improvement.

Within this scope, the elegies to his son Noel stand out. Therefore, his poetry is interwoven with many of the great authors of the Cuban and also Spanish poetic tradition, the latter with a strong presence in the popular versification of the island.

He appears in most anthologies of twentieth-century Cuban poetry and brought his poetry to different countries in Europe, Asia, Africa, and America. His poems have been translated into English, French, Italian, Russian, Czech, Chinese, and Yugoslavian.

His prose has also been recognized and awarded, and encompasses a broad discursive register ranging from prologues, essays and studies of tradition and folklore, to his extensive journalistic work.

One cannot overlook, as an unavoidable element of his life, the profound political activism to which his experience of art and literature was linked. As early as 1952 he joined the editorial staff of the clandestine newspaper Son los mismos, where he coincided with Abel Santamaría Cuadrado, Jesús Montané, Raúl Gómez García and other members of the so-called Generation of the Centennial. That same year he personally met Fidel Castro, who was already organizing the preparations for the Assault on Moncada Barracks.

By 1955 he joined the Sociedad Nuestro Tiempo, where he offered recitals and talks. He initiated cultural activities with the express objective of raising funds for armed insurrection, in coordination with the Revolutionary Movement 26 of July (MR 26-7) and the Popular Socialist Party. For demanding the amnesty of Fidel and his companions he suffered barracks detention and was freed by popular outcry. His Estampas y elegías had already been published by then, which earned him very favorable opinions from the national press.

His political activism remained unscathed until the triumph of the Cuban Revolution in 1959. From this moment on his life and work were dedicated almost entirely to revolutionary culture. He had already consolidated his collaborative relationship with Bohemia magazine, as well as with various radio and television programs. He also became a literary advisor and director of the Peasant Group, and in 1959 he traveled with the Ballet Folklórico de Alberto Alonso to several cities in Europe: Moscow, Volgograd, Leningrad, Helsinki, Paris, and Madrid.

In the newspaper jose-antonio-choy he began a versified column under the title "Al son de la historia" and participated in meetings of writers and artists with Fidel in the National Library of Cuba, where he delivered his speech "Palabras a los intelectuales."

In 1964, after participating in the founding of the Union of Writers and Artists of Cuba (UNEAC), he presented to the country's leadership the project to create the Jornada Cucalambeana, aimed at exalting the figure of poet Juan Cristóbal Nápoles Fajardo, El Cucalambé, as well as to revive and preserve peasant culture. These conferences continue to be celebrated to this day with great impact at the continental and regional level.

During the years that follow, his union work, political activism and work as a cultural activist and promoter invariably accompany the poet. Numerous poetry collections of his were published in these years by various publishers in the country, his poetry was translated into more than ten languages and published in countries in Latin America and Europe, where he received several awards. His extensive journalistic work also stands out, present in the country's most important newspapers. He was also invited as a speaker and judge in national, regional, and continental literary prizes, among which the Casa de las Américas Literary Prize stands out, in which he shared with poet Mario Benedetti.

In 1981 he was decorated with the Distinction for National Culture and the Medal "Alejo Carpentier" conferred by the Council of State of the Republic of Cuba.

He received the Critic's Prize several times and in 1995 he was awarded the National Literature Prize, in recognition of his body of work. In 1999 he also received the National Community Culture Prize.

Jesús Orta Ruiz died in La Habana in 2005.