Regino Eladio Boti Barreiro

One of the great poets of postmodernism, a movement that renewed lyric poetry on the Island in the second decade of the twentieth century.

He was born in the easternmost of the Cuban provinces, Guantánamo, in house No. 5 on Vizcay Street at the corner of Concha, today Bernabé Varona almost at the corner of Martí. Son of Regino de la Caridad Boti y Morales and Florentina Barreiro, he was the only living male among 8 sisters.

He completed primary education in his native town. Between 1895 and 1898, he resided in Barcelona, sent by his family to continue his studies.

In 1900, he was appointed interim assistant at a boys' school in Guantánamo, of which he later became director. He worked as an auxiliary steward at a sugar mill in the Dominican Republic (1902-1904).

He taught in public schools until 1906, when he was dismissed. In 1907, he was a co-founder, in Guantánamo, of the National Conservative Party, whose presidency he later held (1920-1922). From 1907 to 1908, he worked as a professor in private schools and directed the Municipal Night School. For several years, he served as secretary of the Municipal Electoral Board of Guantánamo (1908-1917).

In 1911, he graduated as a public schoolteacher. He obtained the title of Bachelor in 1913. That same year he was president of the Society of Lectures of Guantánamo. He graduated as Doctor of Civil Law from the University of La Habana (1917) and later obtained the title of Public Notary (1918).

He practiced the notarial profession and was a professor of grammar and literature at the Secondary School Institute of Guantánamo. He was a delegate to the Second American Conference of Intellectual Cooperation (1941).

In 1942, at 64 years of age, he graduated as Doctor of Philosophy and Letters from the University of La Habana.

With José Manuel Poveda and Agustin Acosta, Regino E. Boti forms the trio of poets who, during the 1910s, produced the first lyric renaissance in republican times, known as postmodernism, and which would anticipate the artistic and social upheavals of the 1920s.

The first years of the twentieth century had been dominated by modernism, but the reiteration of themes and forms determined the decadence of this movement, against which reacted the poets who form the most advanced nucleus of the first generation of the Republic. The postmodernist movement was not generated in the capital, but in the provinces, and constituted a reaction in two directions: that of sentimental poetry, of contained emotion, refined and insinuated, of Agustin Acosta, from Matanzas, and Felipe Pichardo Moya, from Camagüey; and that of conceptual poetry, metaphorical, of cerebral image and formal elaboration: Regino E. Boti and José Manuel Poveda, both from Oriente.

Boti's first collection of poems, Arabescos mentales (1913), already synthesizes the characteristics and fundamental values of his work: strength and diversity of form, unusual vocabulary in the sought-after distance from the vulgar and inexpressive, and fortunate affection for an ambitious neoparnasianism in communicating emotion to his scenes ("Funerals of Hernando de Soto") and in uniting soul and landscape ("The Voice of the Monster," "The Reef").

His other collection, El mar y la montaña (1921), shows the author's complete maturity, his capacity to unite the feeling for nature, always stylized, sublimated in intentions, and the mastery of form, image, original metaphor, and a certain achieved tendency toward reflection that discovers the small and depressing aspects of daily life. The purpose of perfecting and refining this type of poetry also appears in La torre del silencio (1926).

The scholar Enrique Saínz (Trayectoria poética y crítica de Regino Boti, 1987) has recently said that, although Arabescos mentales is a key book in the history of Cuban lyric poetry of the twentieth century, El mar y la montaña is its best and most lasting contribution to Cuban poetry: "We are in the presence of a living classic, a book that has undoubtedly transcended the limits of its time and its ideological-aesthetic affiliation and reaches us as a contemporary."

The strongest feature of this collection is sobriety, that stripping away of all superfluous verbalism that burdens so many stanzas of Boti himself in Arabescos… The poems of El mar y la montaña, better than Arabescos mentales, managed to free Cuban poetry of those years from the state of lethargy into which it had fallen with its languishing epigonal romanticism and its decadent sentimentalism now incapable of expressing the era, in transition toward the avant-gardes, as would be seen shortly after in the works of Tallet, Martínez Villena, ivan-pedroso, Manuel Navarro Luna, nicolas-guillen. Although for our literary history Boti's first book is more important, El mar y la montaña is of superior quality and of a permanence that none of the others achieved.

In Kodak-Ensueño (1929) and Kindergarten (1930), Boti joins in the versification exercises of avant-gardism, the synthetic current of European isms that already dominated the Cuban literary scene of the time, thus proving the flexibility of his expressive abilities.

Regino E. Boti was also a persevering and attentive scholar of literature, specialized in the analysis of metric form ("perhaps the most conspicuous scholar of metric forms that our literature has had," according to Saínz), in the evolution of Spanish American modernism, and in the work of Rubén Darío. He was a compiler of unknown works by Darío and a scholar of questions of form and poetic relationships in the work of Gertrudis Gómez de Avellaneda, Rubén Darío, and José Martí. He compiled Cuban popular songs, collected in La lira cubana (4th ed. Imp. La Imperial, Guantánamo, 1919).

He cultivated painting as an entertainment, but with such skill that his watercolors constitute a legacy of enormous value for the plastic arts of a country like Cuba with an extensive and relevant corpus of painters.

He practiced political and literary journalism also with success. He was a collaborator for a notable number of periodical publications, among which are: Oriente, El Pensil, Oriente Literario, Renacimiento, El Cubano Libre, Orto, Luz, El Estudiante, Cuba y América, El Tiempo, Cuba Contemporánea, Revista de Avance, Letras, El Fígaro, Bohemia, La Ilustración, Universal, Diario de la Marina, Revista Bimestre Cubana, and El Mundo.

He was a corresponding member of the Academy of History of Cuba, of the Cuban Academy of Language, and of the Hispanic American Academy of Sciences and Arts of Cádiz.

Chronology
1895- Embarks from Santiago de Cuba to Barcelona on July 10. Enrolls on September 6 at Colegio Vilar in Barcelona and at the Secondary School Institute in that city.

1900- Appointed Internal Assistant at Boys' School No. 2 in Guantánamo, which was later called José Antonio Saco. Boti was director of that school.

1900- In September participates in the excursion of Cuban Teachers to Harvard University, Boston, USA.

1901- Receives the title of Public Teacher of First Degree in June.

1902- Goes to Santo Domingo and works at the Sugar Central San Pedro de Macorís until 1904. Rose to auxiliary steward at the same central.

1904- Learned the trade of cigar maker during the time he was in Cuba after returning from Santo Domingo. Receives the Title of Third Degree Teacher.

1906- Is dismissed from teaching.

1907- Founds the Magazines CHIC and LAUROS. Correspondence begins between José Manuel Poveda and Boti. Together with 12 friends founds the Conservative Party in Guantánamo. Enters as professor at the Private School of Don Ignacio Méndez. Enters as professor at the Pedro Castellanos Night Academy. Appointed Director of the Municipal School until 1908.

1908- Begins serving as secretary of the Electoral Board until September 1917.

1910- Publishes: Rumbo a Jauco. Also publishes in El Cubano Libre, a newspaper from Santiago de Cuba, his book: "Prosas Emotivas."

1911- Publishes: Guillermón, which is a short biography of Guillermón Moncada, also publishes Brief Notes About the Origins of Guantánamo. José Manuel Poveda and Boti meet in person.

1913- Publishes his first book of poetry: Arabescos Mentales. Presides over the Society of Lectures of Guantánamo. Publishes the book Lira Cubana.

1914- Receives the Title of Bachelor in Sciences and Letters from the Institute of Santiago de Cuba.

1915-1917- Begins and completes the Law degree, receives the Title of Doctor of Civil Law.

1918- On February 6 begins to practice as a Public Notary in Viñales and on August 2 is appointed Public Notary of Guantánamo.

1919- Publishes the book: "The February 24, 1895."

1920- Is President of the Conservative Party of Guantánamo. Resigns from the Directorship of the Newspaper El Nacionalista, of Guantánamo. Publishes Hipsipilas, a compilation of poems by Rubén Darío.

1921- Publishes: El Mar y la Montaña, also edits El Árbol del Rey David, a compilation of unpublished poems by Rubén Darío, and Dilucidaciones Métricas.

1922- On May 11 marries Caridad de León y Blanco and they have three children: Regino Gaudencio, Caridad Mariana, and Florentina Regis. Founds the Lodge Esperanza.

1923- Publishes Para Hipsipilas, a compendium of poems by Rubén Darío.

1924- Presents his work: "The February 24, 1895" to the Academy of History of La Habana and is accepted as a member on March 27.

1925- Publishes the book Martí en Darío. Is accepted into the Royal Spanish American Academy of Sciences and Arts of Cádiz.

1926- Publishes the book of poetry La Torre del Silencio and Notes About José Manuel Poveda, His Time, His Life and His Work, at El Arte Editorial, Manzanillo.

1927- Is accepted and receives the Title of member of the Academy of History of Cuba. Writes the prologue for Juan Marinello's book "Liberación."

1929- Publishes Kodak - Ensueño. On June 10 is proclaimed Honorary Member of the Veterans' Delegation of Guantánamo.

1930- Publishes Kindergarten. On May 20 is declared Honorary Member of the Veterans' Delegation of Guantánamo.

1937- Appointed Professor of Grammar and Literature at the Secondary School Institute of Guantánamo on April 7.

1939- Begins his studies in Philosophy and Letters at the University of La Habana and his thesis was: "Garcilaso de la Vega," which he never presented. Delivers a speech at La Confianza on February 24.

1945- Takes a trip with his daughters to the United States.

1948- Travels to the United States and visits the Library of Congress, finding that all his books are there. Also conducts studies on José Martí, Edgar A. Poe, and others.

1949- Is a Juror for the Justo de Lara Prize in La Habana.

1950- Is awarded a Medal for 30 Years of Service as Public Notary.

1951- Takes his first trip to Mexico.

1952- Takes his second trip to Mexico.

1953- Organizes the Martian Symposium in Guantánamo on March 21.

1954- His second daughter Caridad Mariana Boti y León dies on February 15.

1958- In February receives Acceptance as Member of the Academy of Language. Dies on August 5 at his residence on Martí Street No. 911, in Guantánamo.