Poems by Juana Borrero

The Cuban poet Juana Borrero (1877-1896) died at the age of eighteen. Her poems, sensual, melancholic and painful, amaze by the unusual precocity of their author and by the halo of mystery that surrounds them.
Juana embraced both poetry and painting precociously. Between five and seven years of age he spontaneously made his first drawings and poems. At the age of twelve he wrote the sonnets Las hijas del Ran and Apolo, considered among the best in Cuban literature. In 1891 he published in the most important seminary of the city Havana Elegante his poem: Vespertino.
In its scarce nineteen years of existence it left an indisputable mark on Cuban lyric. Her admiration for Julián del Casal, her courtship with the poet Carlos Pio Uhrbach, her family environment, favored that José Lezama Lima considered her initiator of the “mystery of poetic participation”.
The Cuban poet and essayist Cintio Vitier said of Juana Borrero that she was a “child prodigy” who left famous poems, letters and paintings:

“Juana’s fate must be understood from the ultra-romantic assumptions spread in the artistic media of the end of the century and represented among us with special sincerity and lucidity by her beloved teacher Julián del Casal. Among these assumptions or quintessences two can be pointed out: Nature is abominable; Joy is vulgar.”

Shortly before dying of tuberculosis in exile, Juana Borrero dictated, almost without strength, to her sister, her last poem, entitled “Last rhyme”.

Last rhyme

I have dreamed in my dreary nights,
In my sad nights of sorrows and tears,
With a kiss of love and without fire, without fever and without craving,
I do not want the delight that enervates,
The panting delight that embraces,
And they cause me infinite weariness
The sensual lips that kiss and stain.
Oh, my beloved, my impossible beloved!
My sweet looking dream boyfriend,
When you kiss me with your lips,
Kiss me without fire, without fever and without craving.
Give me the dream kiss in my nights,
In my sad nights of sorrows and tears,
Leave a star on my lips
And a faint perfume of spikenard in the soul.

Reference edition: Poetisas cubanas, Havana, Letras Cubanas, 1985.