• On August 28, 1955, the second meeting of the so-called Controversy of the Century was held at the Campo Armada Stadium in Lawton.

It was not until well into the early years of the Republic that truly important and significant names appeared in the context of our peasant minstrelsy: Celestino García “El Rey de los Versadores” (The King of Versifiers), Juan Ruperto Delgado Limendoux “El Vate Sagüero” (The Sage Poet), Reynaldo Ordoñez Santana, Gregorio Morejón, Manuel Puertas Salgado, Horacio Martínez, and Manuel Tejera Trujillo “Gareo,” to mention just a few of the most significant.

As for controversies that can be considered referential, there are those between Limendoux and Morejón, and those between Limendoux and Santana. Although I maintain the opinion that the décimas rescued by the notable researcher and folklorist René Batista Moreno and published by Editorial Capiro in 2009 under the title Limendoux: Legend and Reality, do not constitute a legitimate version of the originally improvised verses, but rather that they have been adulterated, which I was able to verify in publications that appeared earlier. Nevertheless, Batista Moreno's commendable effort offers a necessary insight into the improvisers of yesteryear, how they conceptually approached different thematic areas, some of which were ahead of their time.

It is important to point out the poets who, in my opinion, form the basis of what, from the 1940s onwards, would mean the great tropological leap of the so-called “national stanza” by the Bayamo poet and patriot José Fornaris. The main Cuban researchers almost always and unanimously refer basically to Jesús Orta Ruiz, “Indio Naborí,” while others—the minority—mention Francisco Riverón Hernández (1917-1975) from Güine, to whom I would add Rafael Rubiera García (1922-1996), a contemporary of both and an enthusiastic innovator. I would add two others who, earlier, in the now distant 1930s, were true pioneers: Alfonso Camín from Asturias and Hispérides Zerquera (1911-1978) from Cienfuegos. The first was quickly silenced, and the second and third were unnoticed teachers of generations. They were not alone; they were accompanied by many, including some occasional and professional decima writers who made their mark with their respective works.

Riverón is not only one of the most modern and decisive Cuban decimistas, but he is also one of the most aesthetically influential; he is moreover, the most published of the popular poets of his time. “El Ñato” Rubiera, for his part, has in “Sílabas de la Yagua” (1956) one of the most influential books in the Cuban lyrical repertoire. Zerquera, who was an outstanding improviser, alternated between oral and written expression from a very early age, with a style close to Modernism, which was very striking for the repentistas of the time. He made himself known through the local press, creating a metaphorical trend that was continued by improvisers such as Guillermo Sosa Curbelo, José Miguel Bello, Luis Cruz Alonso, Jesusito Rodríguez, Luis Quintana, Luis Paz Esquivel, Oniesis Gil, and many others.

They are the main standard-bearers, marking the way forward, constituting the vanguard of the most important promotion of practitioners of the popular verse; they are the ones who mark a before and after, the first and most notable great masters of improvisation. In Carey (1931), Camín unveiled Cangrejo Moro, his first Cuban décimas—highly original and sensual—at a time when he already enjoyed enormous prestige.

To get a more accurate idea of Camín's importance, it suffices to point out that Indio Naborí began to publish his notebooks Guardarraya sonora from 1939 to 1955, Bandurria y violín (1948), Guardarraya del sueño (1950), and his poetry collection Estampas y elegías between 1939 and 1955; Nuestra Señora del Mar by Emilio Ballagas (1943); Samuel Feijóo published his Jiras Guajiras from 1937-1938 in 1949; Trópico, by Eugenio Florit, was published in 1947, as was Plasmas Alucinantes by Cecilio Sarret; and Doña Martina by Manuel Navarro Luna appeared in 1952. In other words, only Pórtico, by Agustín Acosta, predates Camín's verses, appearing in La zafra (1926). And I am referring to titles and authors that are highly significant, in a certain context, in the evolution of the décima, and among whom we can also mention Felipe Pichardo Moya, Rubén Martínez Villena, Nicolás Guillén, Ramón Guirao, Ángel Gaztelu, Eliseo Diego, Raúl Ferrer, etc.

And there was Alfonso Camín, who, unfortunately, has been given little or no credit in Cuba. He is responsible for what Virgilio López Lemus called “tourist poetry” (a magnificent example is Última canción cubana), which is nothing more than postcards in verse, taken to their highest expression by Francisco Riverón Hernández in Caimán Sonoro (1959) and by Margarita Ferrer in Cuba en verso: Décimas de anticipo y un romance fantástico, 1958-1964 (1965). Today, great improvisers such as Omar Mirabal Navarro and José Enrique Paz Esquivel use certain related turns of phrase.

So far, this has been a brief overview of how the groundwork was laid for the Controversy of the Century, undoubtedly a milestone in Cuban decima. But that's not all. There is a little-known fact that José Lezama Lima warns about in a lecture (Fascination of Memory: Unpublished Texts by José Lezama Lima. Letras Cubanas Publishing House, 1993), which he gave in the mid-1960s. He states:

Plácido in Santa Clara meets none other than Poveda, another of our great popular poets, a wonderful improviser. He continues: “It must have been a great and prodigious celebration in the sitiería, in the bailongos, in the guitarreos of our guajiros, the meeting of Poveda with Plácido...”

Such speculation is not at all far-fetched, or at least, it is quite close to reality. In March 1843, Plácido traveled to Santa Clara for the second time (the first was in 1840). He visited Sagua la Grande (Poveda lived in Sagua), Remedios, and Cienfuegos, and even suffered six months in prison in Trinidad, accused of conspiratorial activities, until he returned to Matanzas in November of that same year.

Juan Carlos García Guridi, a writer and researcher from Mayabeque.

Francisco Calcagno suggests that by 1826, Plácido was already known as a prolific and gifted improviser, and he defines Poveda as a well-known improviser in the countryside long before El Cucalambé [or Fajardo, who was his imitator] was called “El Trovador Cubano” (The Cuban Troubadour). He adds later: “Most of his décimas are about love, and with them Poveda surely wanted to please with his voice and his tiple, as well as enliven his verses and spread his fame from the Almendares to the remote Cauto or Cuyaguateje.” Meanwhile, in his studies on Cantares de Cuba, Ramón de Palma does not hesitate to call him the most famous troubadour of our countryside. As everything indicates, there are sufficient reasons to believe that the controversy between Poveda and Plácido did take place. If so, we would undoubtedly be in the presence of the great controversy of the 19th century, the first great island-wide improvisational event; a unique precedent for what, a little over a century later, Indio Naborí and Angelito Valiente would brilliantly develop.

The Controversy of the Century was an extension of the National Troubadour Competition, broadcast by Cuba's main radio station, CMQ, which, between 1954 and 1958, aired the program from 10 to 11 in the morning. It is said that the public was often dissatisfied with the brevity of the controversies offered by the radio and, through thousands of letters, demanded other poetic clashes in the presence of a jury and a larger venue that would allow them to attend. It is worth noting that this was not the only public or mass presentation between two poets; the mano a mano held by Pedro Guerra, “La Estrella del Parnaso” (the most feared of the minstrels of the time) and Justo Vega; Naborí and Justo, and Pedro and Naborí, among others, were highly acclaimed.

Thus, Angelito and Naborí were summoned to demonstrate their improvisational skills at the Círculo de Artesanos de San Antonio de los Baños on June 15, 1955, before a panel made up of the prestigious writers Raúl Ferrer, Rafael E. Marrero, and the Spaniard José Sanjurjo. The themes they sang about were Love, Freedom, and Death (ten verses per theme). The lyrical debate was so close that the jury declared a tie. Pressured by the audience, a second meeting was called at the Campo Armada Stadium, in Lawton, on August 28 of the same year, where El Campesino and La Esperanza were the themes to be evaluated. By a very narrow margin (only one point difference), Naborí won the verdict, in a “fight” characterized by total fraternity and professionalism. But the real outcome was fifty verses and a dialogue of the highest level, a true lyrical monument.

I have indeed heard opinions questioning its authenticity, labeling the controversy as rigged, accusing Naborí and Valiente of impure improvisation. Those who judge them base their arguments on the fact that the controversy was recorded in shorthand and that when the verses were transcribed, they could have been improved (adulterated), others on the fact that the drums were manipulated, and the most simplistic on why it was not recorded to have evidence of how it was.

What no one questions is the aesthetic level achieved, which was almost perfect, much less the fact that these are two great poets, and even if that were the case, it is a memorable event in the history of improvised and sung poetry. I consider it an unprecedented cultural event, capable of mobilizing thousands of people. To get a more accurate picture of the scope of their “improvisations,” one can count on one hand the number of decimistic confrontations that qualitatively compare to it. I have searched and searched again, and the only ones I can mention are the controversy between the two Franciscos—Riverón and Pereira “Chanchito”—at Playa Cajío in 1971, in which they masterfully paraphrase Martí; a shorter one between Justo Vega and Adolfo Alfonso, which took place in Palmas y Cañas in the late 1970s and was ingeniously and playfully created based on palindromes; and, finally, another involving Naborí himself, but this time with the great Pablo León, which took place at the Cine Continental in San Miguel del Padrón in the early 1980s and reached an extraordinary level. I don't think many others, no matter how good they may have been, reach that level. All of them, probably, like many others, are impure improvisations. Another element that corroborates the greatness, the status of the Controversy of the Century as a lyrical monument, is the number of times it has been attempted to be replicated as a tribute and reminder by many of Cuba's best poets, and in my humble opinion, only the version by Aramís Padilla and Héctor Gutiérrez on the theme of the Peasant can emulate the aesthetic dimensions achieved by Naborí and Valiente in each of the topics imposed seventy years ago. Is it of little merit if, even though it could have been rigged, almost all poets try to imitate and surpass it without being able to do so, and often the mistakes are obvious? Is it of little merit if, 50-70 years later, it continues to be the standard controversy or the pattern to be surpassed? Is it of little merit that, even with the development achieved, today's poets are unable to look at themselves in the mirror of timelessness?

The Controversy of the Century has only served to confirm that Naborí and Valiente are two geniuses of improvised oral poetry, popular poetry. In the case of Naborí, it consolidates him as the most legitimate heir to the tradition of writers-repentistas initiated by Plácido and Poveda. In any case, there is nothing to reproach Naborí and Valiente for; their only fault was to impose a model that is impossible for the vast majority to achieve. And I repeat, even though it was certainly not improvised, both of them, like Justo, Riverón, Pablo, Chanchito, Adolfo, Aramís, Héctor, and so many others, were and have been able to demonstrate “in situ” and convincingly, for hours on end, that not everything is a radio or television program, or a staged show... With the Controversy of the Century, Naborí and Valiente elevated the popular décima to the category of art, positioning it there, where only the chosen ones can say: “Here I feel...”