"Emilio Ballagas Cubeñas must be remembered not only as one of the greatest Cuban lyricists of all time, but also as the poet who approached his work with the most dispossessed and forgotten classes of the society that he lived. It was, along with his compatriot from Camagüey, Nicolás Guillén, who stood out the most in the well-known Negro poetry within the literary vanguard of the first half of the last century".
That’s the words of Ramón Rodríguez Cabrera, local poet that speaks with passion about poetry or literature in general. He is a member of the literary workshop that precisely takes the name of the writer born in Camagüey on November 7 in 1908 and that had long stays in this town of Buenaventura.
Once again, members of this literary workshop together with cultural promoters and specialists from the municipal sector of Culture in Calixto García recalled and highlighted the work of Ballagas. Among poems, music and conversations was remembered not only his work, but his visits to this town where he is remembered each year.
"I was very young. Emilio was at my grandmother's house with his brother-in-law, Doctor Codina, who was the family doctor, and there he admired the homage my people gave to La Virgen de La Caridad. He promised he would go back and then he did it and he was in one of those many masses that evoked the patron saint of Cuba, by the way he wrote a lot to the Virgin, including beautiful prayers, "said the well-known poetress Daysi Acosta, member of the workshop and present at the meeting.
Ballagas Cubeñas was born in the city of Camagüey on November 7, 1908 and after graduating in Pedagogy at the University of Havana in 1928 he published his first book under the title Jubilee and Fugue, in 1933. In 1934 was publised his first notebook of Negro poetry, standing out with his compatriot Nicolás Guillén in this literary expression within the avant-garde period in Cuba.
The relationship of Emilio Ballagas with Buenaventura was given in that his sister Alicia resided in this town, which he visited in an eventual way and it is believed that the rural atmosphere inspired him for some of his works.
