My Voice

By Rafael Campo b. 1964 Rafael Campo

To cure myself of wanting Cuban songs,

I wrote a Cuban song about the need

For people to suppress their fantasies,

Especially unhealthy ones. The song

Began by making reference to the sea,

Because the sea is like a need so great

And deep it never can be swallowed. Then

The song explores some common myths

But the Cuban people and their folklore:

The story of a little Carib boy

Mistakenly abandoned to the sea;

The legend of a bird who wanted song

So desperately he gave up flight; a queen

Whose strength was greater than a rival king’s.

The song goes on about morality,

And then there is a line about the sea,

How deep it is, how many creatures need

Its nourishment, how beautiful it is

To need. The song is ending now, because

I cannot bear to hear it any longer.

I call this song of needful love my voice.

Source: What The Body Told (Duke University Press, 1996)

Biography

In interviews Rafael Campo has called himself “a mutt, a mongrel, a kind of happy monster,” referring to the disparate professional and personal identities he has learned to negotiate. Born in Dover, New Jersey in 1964 to Cuban and Italian parents, Campo attended Amherst College and Harvard Medical School. A poet and physician, Campo practices internal medicine at Harvard Medical School and the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical . . .

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