Poetry
Cumbia
Not translated into English
Demetrio Korsi · 1935
Synopsis
Poems set to the rhythms of the African-tinged music and dances of the isthmus, such as “Pirulí” or “Cumbia chamera”, written in the popular speech of the Panamanians and mixed with criticism of the American presence. The best known, “Incidente de cumbia”, takes place during a dance in which the mulatto dancer Meme abandons Chimbombó, her Black partner, for a gringo who has come to dance among them.
Context
The collection appeared in Panama in 1935; it is recorded under the title of its best-known poem. Its author, who came from modernismo and moved on to the avant-garde, wrote there in the Black manner of Nicolás Guillén and Emilio Ballagas and brought the speech of the Panamanian street into verse. In 1941 he published Cumbia y otros poemas panameñistas, then took up the collection again in 1953, expanded and more plainly anti-imperialist, under the title Los gringos llegan y la cumbia se va.
Who it is for
In Spanish, with no published translation; poems to be read aloud, for their dance rhythm and their everyday words.
Prizes and reception
His popular poems, “Incidente de cumbia” foremost among them, are the ones that most touched his readers, according to El Siglo, through the image they give of Panamanian identity.
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