Lezama at the Root

Not all who once were are present, but all who are present, once were. The unifying gift of José Lezama Lima brought together a significant portion of Cuba's great 20th-century poets and artists under the tree of his editorial projects—a metaphor for shared vitality and intellectual fortitude.

They are here, gathered once more, in a beautiful and thoughtfully conceived book: Variaciones del árbol, an edition by the Mariano Rodríguez Foundation. With an editorial concept by Fidel Antonio Orta and an introductory text by Israel Díaz Mantilla, it summons that Lezamian spirit of fruitful confluence and makes it accessible to the contemporary reader.

The volume offers a revealing panorama of one of the great milestones of Cuban culture: the renewing phenomenon of the magazine Orígenes and other related projects, which significantly reshook the nation's literary and artistic fabric.

Where tradition seemed settled in zones of expressive comfort, a group of creators emerged, willing to rethink everything. This book recaptures the texture of that moment, its audacity and its depth.

Without pretensions of absolutism or establishing philological doctrine, it brings together poems, letters to Lezama, and illustrations by exceptional creators. Thus, the reader gains access to a representative overview of the Lezamian endeavor, which relied on the generous collaboration of diverse figures united by the certainty that, in times of scarce material resources, true decisiveness lay in commitment. This heterogeneous corpus functions as an affective and intellectual map of a crucial era.

Furthermore, Variaciones del árbol is proof of an integrative vision of culture that animated those projects: they were more than poetry, but poetry granted them a unique lyrical framework, a common breath. Therefore, books like this do not merely evoke a legacy; they contribute to strengthening valuable testimonies of Cuban cultural history and to reaffirming the enduring relevance of a creative spirit that continues to summon.

Translated by Sergio A. Paneque / CubaSí Translation Staff