María de las Mercedes Valdés Mendoza

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Cuban poet.

She was born on November 11, 1820 in Guanabacoa, although Calcagno and González Curquejo list Matanzas as her birthplace.

Educated with great care by her parents, from a very young age she read classics and romantics and began to cultivate poetry, without making herself publicly known in the early stages of her literary career.

Her retired life would have caused her to go unnoticed if a poem of hers titled "La rosa blanca" had not been read by Francisco Javier Foxá, without her knowledge, at a gathering of Nicolás Azcárate, and received with special applause and celebration.

From then on she began to stand out in literary circles, where she read several works that appear included in volume I of her "Noches Literarias".

Simple, tender and sentimental, she also knew how to draw forth the elevated, energetic and solemn notes characteristic of epic poetry.

She made her poems known in various publications, such as El Liceo de La Habana, Guirnalda Cubana, El Rocío, Faro Industrial de La Habana, Floresta Cubana, Álbum Cubano de lo bueno y de lo bello, El Aguinaldo, Cuba Literaria, Revista de La Habana and Revista Habanera.

In Spain her poems appeared in Madrid and Seville newspapers.

She appeared in the anthologies "Poetisas Americanas" by Cortés, París, 1875, and in the "Galería de Poetas" of Nueva Granada.

She published two volumes: "Cantos Perdidos", La Habana, 1847, and "Poesías", La Habana, 1854.

Some of her poems such as the "Canto a Cristóbal Colón" were translated into English and German.

She died at a very advanced age on June 1st, 1896, in Guanabacoa.