Rafael Alcides Pérez

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He was born in Bayamo, Granma. He completed his primary education in his native city and his high school studies at the Instituto de Segunda Enseñanza de Holguín and at the Escuelas Pías de La Habana.

He studied industrial chemistry at the Escuela de Artes y Oficios de La Habana.

He traveled to Mexico, United States, Argentina, Chile, Uruguay, and Venezuela.

He was a radio producer, director, and writer; for several years he made Cuban poets known through the program En su lugar la poesía.

Contributor to Unión, Casa de las Américas, and La Gaceta de Cuba. In 1965 he received an honorable mention in the Casa de las Américas Contest for his novel Contracastro.

Among his works are: Himnos de montaña, Gitana, La pata de palo, Agradecido como un perro, Y se mueren y vuelven y se mueren, Noche en el recuerdo, and Nadie.

This author has practiced Colloquialism, to which he adds a peculiar expressive manner between emotional and elegiac. He has remained faithful to this line, venturing into themes that are above all autobiographical. Sometimes he enjoys witty poetry, as in "La doble imagen," "La cita del señor," or "La nariz," but his central tone is in "Agradecido como un perro," in which the emotional, sentimental quality brings reminiscence of neo-Romanticism. Alcides has a background akin to the expression of family or social tragedies, as evidenced by his poems "La bayamesa desconocida" and "La liquidación del siglo," respectively.

According to Cuban writer Virgilio López Lemus:
"When in 1983 he published Agradecido como un perro, he was turning fifty years old, and he became a reference poet for generations born between 1946 and 1970. His homonymous poem turns out to be a work of art of conversational language, characteristic of the emotional-speculative or emotional and meditative line that he wrapped within the poetic current led by his generation, colloquialism. 'Agradecido como un perro' is a long and intense poem in which the lyrical subject appears in a confessional and at the same time testimonial attitude, where he includes social life and the temporal course of the home, love and friendship (or are they one?), and above all the warmth of a man who expresses himself with his skin open to the world, even though he may receive wounds or caresses. Caresses, well: that is what the poem wishes to do: to caress, to be grateful, to praise the surrounding world, a personal review with collective implications, which consists of an adventure: that of the free, deep, and sincere expression of being, without sentimental games or concessions to the bitterness that life may leave in our path."

From left to right: Rafael Alcides Pérez, Francisco de Oraá, Pedro Juan Rodríguez, Pedro de Oraá, Osvaldo Navarro
Active Bibliography
Himnos de montaña. La Habana, Talleres Capitolio Nacional, 1961.
Gitana. Poetry. La Habana, Talleres de Tosco, 1962.
La pata de palo [Poems]. La Habana, Ediciones Unión, 1967.
Agradecido como un perro. Poetry. Giraldilla Collection, Ed Letras Cubana, 1983. 2nd ed. 1990.
Nadie. Poetry, Special Edition. Editorial Letras Cubanas, 1993.
Noche en el recuerdo. Poetry. Ed. Letras Cubanas, 1989.
Y se mueren, y vuelven, y se mueren. Poetry. Giraldilla Collection, Ed. Letras Cubanas, 1989.
Passive Bibliography
Manuel Díaz Martínez: "La pata de palo," in El Mundo. La Habana, 66 (22 072): 4, Dec. 13, 1967.
Piñera, Virgilio. "La pata de palo," in Unión. La Habana, 6 (1): 170-173, Mar., 1968.
Awards and Honors
Honorable Mention in the Casa de las Américas Contest, 1965.
Bodegas Olarra-Café Bretón Literary Prize, 2011.

He died in Cuba, victim of cancer at the age of 85. The sensualist poet, friend and protagonist of Nadie, achieved what very few do: "Live as he thought." In his residence in Nuevo Vedado he found his final rest, after having battled cancer.