Juana Rosa Pita (n. Padrón) is a poet, writer, editor and translator. She was born in Havana on December 8, 1939. She left Cuba in 1961. Since then, she has lived in many cities, including Washington, Caracas, Madrid, New Orleans, Miami, and Boston, where she currently resides. From 1989 to 1992 she was Visiting Professor at Tulane University. She is considered one of the most important contemporary Cuban and Latin American poets. The late Nicaraguan poet Pablo Antonio Cuadra hailed her as "one of the outstanding voices of Cuba’s pilgrim culture. Book after book Juana Rosa Pita has been creating a mysterious realm of love and prophecy: an island of enchantment where words restore all that hatred turned to ashes."^[1][2]

Example

Her ars poetica can be illustrated in a grain of poetry, using her words, a sip of light:

Poetry and prizes

In 1975 Pita won first prize for Latin American poetry from the Institute of Hispanic culture in Malaga, Spain. Since then she has published over two dozen titles, first under the seal of Ediciones Solar, "itinerant editorial" (in the words of Octavio Paz) which she co-founded with David Lagmanovich and sustained for ten years with over 26 books of poetry published by twelve different authors. In 1981 she gave a lecture and reading tour to several universities in Germany and traveled to Caracas as a special guest of the II Congress of Writers in Spanish Language.^[3] Her poetry has been widely studied, partly translated to seven languages; mostly to English and Italian; and included in international anthologies such as Poetisch Rebellieren (Kassel: Werkstatt Verlag, 1981); New Directions in Prose and Poetry 49 (New York: New Directions Books, 1985), translated by Donald D.Walsh; A Century of Cuban Writers in Florida. (Pineapple Press: Sarasota, 1996), Doscientos años de poesía cubana/ 1770-1990/ Cien poemas antológicos (La Habana, 1999), La pérdida y el sueño (Ed. Término, 2001); Poesía cubana del siglo XX (México: FCE, 2002); Breve polifonía hispanoamericana (Chile, 2005); Otra Cuba secreta (Madrid: Verbum, 2012); Catedral sumergida (La Habana: Letras Cubanas, 2013), among others.^[4][5]

Juana Rosa Pita travels frequently to Italy, and also writes and publishes poetry in Italian. In 1985 she was awarded the VIII Premio Pisa Internazionale Ultimo Novecento in the section 'Poeti nel mondo "("it is so significant for Italian literature at the beginning of the century the life force of her poetry composed with an exemplary harmony, brilliant, concise and new, because it pursues no balancing of fashion, but springs from an expressive sensitivity orchestrated with an original rhythm ").^[6] Two years later in 1987 she was awarded the 'Culture for Peace' Premio Alghero. On both occasions she was guest of honor at the Congress of Poets and Critics held in Sardinia, Italy. In 1993 she received the poetry award ‘Letras de Oro’ of the Iberian Studies Institute in Coral Gables. More recently she participated as a special guest in the congresses of the Università degli Studi di Firenze "La parola stuadiata e creata" - Celebration of Hispanicism, and "Cuba dentro e fuori" - Cuban literature of the XIX and XX centuries (May 2007 and May 2008, respectively).^[7][8]

She has edited and prologued works such as the second edition of El pan de los muertos and the first edition of Cartas à la carte, both by Enrique Labrador Ruiz.

Her poems, essays and articles can be found in publications in America and Europe, from La prensa literaria in Managua and Vuelta in Mexico to Cuadernos del Matemático, Alhucema and Diario de Cuba, from Spain. She has translated several works from the Italian, including essays by Paolo Spinicci and Miguel de Unamuno, as well as poems by Antonia Pozzi and Valerio Magrelli.

Two Latin American composers have created, with some of her poems, art songs and other compositions: Cartas Interdimensionales by German Cáceres and "Epigramas" by Diana Arismendi.

An anthology of her work, Antología poética (1975-2018), was selected and introduced by Alexander Pérez-Heredia and published by Editorial Verbum (Madrid: 2019). A comprehensive selection of her poetry from 2010-2019 was translated by Erin Goodman and published by Song Bridge Press in The Miracle Unfolds (Iowa City: 2021).^[9][10]

Works

Education

• 1984 PhD in Hispanic Literature from the Catholic University of America.
• 1975 Master's degree from the George Mason University
• 1957 ‘Bachiller en Letras’ from Nuestra Señora de Lourdes school in Havana

Personal life

Parents: Justo P. Padrón from Palmira (Cienfuegos) y Rosa Cabezón from Cárdenas. From 1960 to 1979 she was married to Mario Pita, and has three children: Maria Isabel, born in Havana, and Lourdes Maria and Mario Alejandro, born in Miami.

References

External links

• Juana Rosa Pita Corral recorded at the Library of Congress for the Hispanic Division’s audio literary archive on April 9, 1984