| Luis Palés Matos | |
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 Luis Palés Matos |
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| Born | March 20, 1898 Guayama, Puerto Rico |
| Died | February 23, 1959 |
| Occupation | poet |
| Nationality | Puerto Rican |
| Genres | Afro-Antillano |
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Influenced
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Luis Palés Matos (March 20, 1898-February 23, 1959) was a Puerto Rican poet who is credited with creating the poetry genre known as Afro-Antillano.
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Matos was born in Guayama, Puerto Rico into a family of well known poets which included both his parents, Vicente Palés Anés and Consuelo Matos Vicil and his brothers and sisters, Vicente, Gustavo, Consuelo and Josefa. His family was instrumental in his poetic development and is reflected when at the age of 17 he wrote and published his first book of poetry titled "Azaleas", a collection of his poems. In high school he became the editor of the school's monthly publication "Mehr Licht". 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.[1][2]
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 Suliveres 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.[1]
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 "Negrismo" movement, he was also criticized by the black community, who considered it an insult to their race that Matos, a white man, was becoming famous on their account.[3]
By the 1980's, Juan Boria, a Black Puerto Rican public school teacher and bookbinder generated renewed interest in Palés Matos by making vinyl disk recordings of his poetry. In December of 2009, Banco Popular de Puerto Rico--for their annual Christmas time cultural production--released cd and dvd versions of Palés y la rumba de esquina, a tribute to Palés Matos' poetry. The production features several Palés Matos poems set to music and interpreted by various artists and musical groups. The dvd includes period costumes and settings, as well as a film technique which mimics black-and-white silent film media.
Some of Matos' works are:
Redirecting to Luis Palés Matos
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