To "PUPITA"



Dr. Manuel  Artime  Bueza
 
(1932-1977)

AMCO would like to share with all of you the above poem entitled "PUPITA" that was written by Dr. Manuel (Manolo) Artime Bueza, the admired civilian leader of the Assault Brigade 2506 who died an untimely death on November 17, 1977. Dr. Artime wrote it in a prison cell in the Isle of Pines in Cuba after he had been captured following the Bay of Pigs invasion. He wrote this poem and many more during his two years of imprisonment in Cuban jails. We believe that this poem clearly depicts his  extraordinary poetic skills, as well as his great patriotic and moral values. In the poem Artime wishes a bright future for "Pupita" and also for the children of all those who were fighting for CubaÍs freedom and democracy. He asks "Pupita" to "be good, love the poor, and forgive those who trespass you," to remember her roots and to try to be professionally successful in life overcoming any obstacles that she might encounter along the way.

    As thousands of young Cuban-Americans of her generation, "Pupita" has accomplished in this great nation all that Dr. Artime wished for her many years ago.  "Pupita" is the daughter of our Chairman, Maj. Gen. (DCNG-Ret.) Erneido Andrés Oliva and his wife, Graciela Ana.  Dr. Maria Oliva-Hemker is Stermer Family Professor of Pediatric Inflammatory Bowel Disease and Director of the Division of Pediatric Gastroenterology and Nutrition at the Johns Hopkins Hospital.  The framed poem "PUPITA" hangs in her office and is printed over a picture of General Oliva, with Dr. Artime by his side, presenting the flag of the 2506 Brigade to President John F. Kennedy at a ceremony in the Orange Bowl in Miami in December 1963.  It was given to her by her husband, Dr. Kevin Hemker, who is Professor and Chairman of the Department of Mechanical Engineering at the Whiting School of Engineering, Johns Hopkins University.


 

                          WAR MARCHES AND PRISON SONGS


       INTRODUCTION


      This is a book that I wrote on the bare and moldy walls of the jail in which I was incarcerated.

      It is a book of poems.


ach and every one of them has special meaning for those who lived the tragedy of the communist prisons. Some of these poems were written in moments of profound significance. One of them, "THE PRAYER ON THE EVE," I wrote on the day that I was informed of  my death sentence. Almost all of these poems had been committed to memory by me and some of my comrades during our incarceration and from these memories the poems were written once we were freed.

    My poems have little literary value. But they have great human value; the value of suffering.

    For this reason this book is sometimes sad, often melancholic, in certain occasions ironic and possibly, in some of the stanzas, one may discovered traces of healthy emotion escaping from those who have suffered much. But this is not a desperate book because its verses vibrate with hope or with Christian acceptance. The suffering written in these stanzas do not all belong to me, only some.  And sometimes I asked myself at what point the tragedy and tears stopped being mine and became those of my brothers in prison; after all in the end, these poems are no more than a pale reflection of the great tragedy that befell us all: the enslavement of Cuba.


    Why have I published these verses? 


o make known the heroism of some of the thousands of martyrs who have written a piece of history with their blood. To keep alive the ideals, suffering, agony and concerns of a group of prisoners who passionately loved an idea. The freedom of their homeland. To make us aware that a lost battle is but one painful incident in the long and difficult road that will ultimately lead us to the glory of a free homeland or the tranquility of a dignified death.


    What do I hope to obtain from this book?

  
  A better understanding of the Cuban tragedy and the heroic behavior of the Assault Brigade 2506.  A spiritual affinity of those of us that were freed with those that are still left behind suffering a slow agony in the communist dungeons. Or who knows maybe my poems will tug at the heart of an honest Cuban whose eyes will overflow with rage or maybe they will cause slow tears to slide down the rosy cheeks of a beautiful Cuban woman.