Nicolas Guillen

I have been reading the poetry of the great Cuban poet Nicolas Guillen, and it is really incredible, I recommend it strongly to everyone, especially if you can read it in Spanish. Here is one poem of his that I love-it's really simple and nice, and it's about how great bars on the beach are, which is something we can all relate to... You can also see how Guillen was really a poet of the people, of the "gente sencilla" as he says in the poem-he is considered the poet of the Cuban Revolution.

Bares

Amo los bares y tabernas
junto al mar,
donde la gente charla y bebe
solo por beber y charlar.
Donde Juan Nadie llega y pide
su trago elemental,
y estan Juan Bronco y Juan Navaja
y Juan Narices y hasta Juan
Simple, el solo, y simplemente
Juan.

Alli la blanca ola
bate de la amistad;
una amistad de pueblo, sin retorica,
un ola de hola y como estas
Alli huele a pescado,
a mangle, a ron, a sal
y a camisa sudada puesta a secar al sol.

Buscame, hermano, y me hallaras
(en La Habana, en Oporto
en Jacmel, en Shanghai)
con la sencilla gente
que solo por beber y charlar
puebla los bares y tabernas
junto al mar.

-Nicolas Guillen

(sorry it's missing some punctuation and accents-I wasnt sure how to do that on here)