Luis Palés Matos

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Luis Palés Matos (March 20, 1898-February 23, 1959) born in Guayama, Puerto Rico, was a poet who is credited with creating the poetry genre known as Afro-Antillano.

Luis Palés Matos

Matos was born into a family of well known poets which included both his parents, Vicente Sr. and Consuelo and his brothers, Vicente Jr., and Gustavo. His family was instrumental in his poetic development and is refected when at the age of 17 he wrote and published his first book of poetry titled "Azales" which included a collection of his poems. In high school he became the editor of the school's monthly publication "Mehr Litch". His family's financial situation wasn't a good one and he was forced to drop out of high school and earn a living working in various jobs.

In 1918, he moved to the town of Fajardo where he worked for El Pueblo, the town's local newspaper. There he met a young lady by the name of Natividad and soon married her. Natividad gave birth to a baby boy, but within a year she died. Matos was devastated and expressed his grief in the poem "El palacio en sombras" (The palace in shadows). He moved to San Juan and worked for the daily newspapers, El Mundo and El Imparcial. In San Juan he met and befriended Jose T. de Diego Pardo, a fellow poet and together they created a literary movement known as "Diepalismo", a name derived from the combination of their surnames.

In 1926, a local newspaper La Democracia published "Pueblo negro" (Black Town), the first known Afro-Antillano poem. This was the beginning of a new genre of Latin-American literature which blended words from the Afro-Caribbean culture into the Spanish verse of Puerto Rico. In 1937, he published "Tun tun de pasa y grifería" (Drumbeats of Kinkiness and Blackness). This collection of poems was highly acclaimed and received an award of recognition from the Puerto Rican Institute of Literature. He gained fame with his literary work but, the experience was bittersweet. Though Matos is considered, together with the Afro-Cuban poet Nicolas Guillen, the father of the "Negrisimo" movement, he was also criticized by the black community, who considered it an insult to their race that Matos, a white man (he was half white), was becoming famous on their account. The criticism had an impact on Matos who stopped writing about Afro-Caribbean themes and turned his attention to only Antillano (West Indies) themes.

Some of Matos' works are:

El palacio en sombras (The Palace in Shadows)
Pueblo negro (Black Town)
Danza negra (Black Dance)
Canción festiva para ser llorada (A festival song to cry for)
Falsa canción de baquiné
Largarto verde (Green Lizard)
Tun tun de pasa y grifería (Drumbeats of kinkiness and blackness)

Matos served as a lecturer for the Faculty of Humanities of the University of Puerto Rico, a position which he held until the day of his death. The influence of his literature transended the boundaries of Puerto Rico to countries such as Panama, Colombia, Ecuador, Uruguay and Venezuela.

Luis Palés Matos died on February 23, 1959 in Santurce, Puerto Rico.