Contributions to a Rudimentary Concept of Nation

By Omar Pérez b. 1964 Omar Perez

Translated By Roberto Tejada

On the volatile nights of a winter

nature corroborates with magnanimity

a Cuban is in training for amusement or amnesia,

so often and unfairly assumed as the same,

he brings candy to God, he cultivates the vernacular, he fights off

cirrhosis with fruit poached in syrup, he conducts business;

thus research has shown that The Cuban is resourceful.

In the weighty choreographies of a summer

nature authorizes already with suspicion

a Cuban meets the ocean with offerings and harpoons,

so often and unfairly assumed as the same,

he finger-counts the casualties, he commits an infraction

he slides his hands into his pockets, he avows and commits;

thus analysis has shown that The Cuban is inspired.

Let’s attend the improbable territory

where with pasty mouths a Cuban and The Cuban engage in virile

conversation

we will learn there by what voyage, by what strange condition

by what exchange

we fall prey to so much ingenuity.

Omar Perez, "Contributions to a Rudimentary Concept of Nation" from Something of the Sacred. Copyright © 2007 by Omar Perez. Reprinted by permission of Roberto Tejada.

Source: Something of the Sacred (Factory School, 2007)

Biography

The son of revolutionary Ernesto “Che” Guevara, poet, editor, and translator Omar Pérez was born and raised in Havana. He earned a degree in English at the University of Havana and studied Italian at the Universitá per Straniere di Siena. He has worked as a journalist for El Caimán Barbudo, and as an editor for the magazine La naranja dulce. A former member of the Cuban intellectual group Paideia, he edited the poetry magazine . . .

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