The Poet Slave of Cuba: A Biography of Juan Francisco Manzano

by Margarita Engle, Sean Qualls (Illustrator)

Overview

A lyrical biography of a Cuban slave who escaped to become a celebrated poet.

Born into the household of a wealthy slave owner in Cuba in 1797, Juan Francisco Manzano spent his early years by the side of a woman who made him call her Mama, even though he had a mama of his own. Denied an education, young Juan still showed an exceptional talent for poetry. His verses reflect the beauty of his world, but they also expose its hideous cruelty.

Powerful, haunting poems and breathtaking illustrations create a portrait of a life in which even the pain of slavery could not extinguish the capacity for hope.

The Poet Slave of Cuba is the winner of the 2008 Pura Belpre Medal for Narrative and a 2007 Bank Street - Best Children's Book of the Year.

Latino Interest.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781466889637
Publisher:	Henry Holt and Co. (BYR)
Publication date:	01/13/2015
Sold by:	Macmillan
Format:	eBook
Pages:	192
Lexile:	NP (what's this?)
File size:	2 MB
Age Range:	12 - 17 Years

About the Author

Margarita Engle is a Cuban American poet, novelist, and journalist whose work has been published in many countries. She is the author of young adult nonfiction books and novels in verse including The Surrender Tree, a Newbery Honor Book, Hurricane Dancers, The Firefly Letters, and Tropical Secrets. She lives in northern California.

Sean Qualls is the illustrator of The Baby on the Way and Powerful Words. He lives with his wife and their son in Brooklyn, New York.

Margarita Engle is the Cuban-American author of many verse novels, memoirs, and picture books, including The Surrender Tree, All the Way to Havana, Bravo!, Drum Dream Girl, and Dancing Hands. Awards include a Newbery Honor, Pura Belpré Medals, Golden Kite Award, Walter Honor, Jane Addams Award, PEN U.S.A., and NSK Neustadt Prize, among others. Margarita served as the national 2017-2019 Young People’s Poet Laureate. Recent young adult verse novels include Wings in the Wild and Wild Dreamers. Recent picture books include Water Day and The Sculptors of Light.

Margarita was born in Los Angeles, but developed a deep attachment to her mother’s homeland during childhood summers with relatives on the island. She studied agronomy and botany along with creative writing, and now lives in central California.


www.margaritaengle.com
Facebook: Margarita Engle
Twitter: @margaritapoet
Instagram: @engle.margarita

Sean Qualls illustrated the widely acclaimed biographies The Poet Slave of Cuba and Dizzy. He lives with his wife and son in Brooklyn, New York.

Read an Excerpt

The Poet Slave of Cuba

A Biography of Juan Francisco Manzano

---

By Engle, Margarita

Henry Holt and Co. (BYR)

Copyright © 2006 Engle, Margarita
All right reserved.
ISBN: 0805077065

---

Juan

My mind is a brush made of feathers
painting pictures of words
I remember
all that I see
every syllable
each word a twin of itself
telling two stories
at the same time
one of sorrow
the other hope

I love the words
written with my feathery mind
in the air
and with my sharp fingernails
on leaves in the garden

When my owner catches
a whiff
of the fragrance
of words
engraved in the flesh
of succulent geranium leaves
or the perfumed petals of alelí flowers
then she frowns because she knows
that I dream
with my feathers
my wings

Poetry cools me, syllables calm me
I read the verses of others
the free men
and know
that I'm never alone

Poetry sets me aflame
I grow furious
dangerous, a blaze
of soul and heart, a fiery tongue
a lantern at midnight

My first owner was sweet to me
I was her pet, a new kind of poodle
my pretty mother chosen
to be her personal handmaid

My mother
María del Pilar Manzano
a slave

Together we belonged
along with countless others
human beasts of burden
to Doña Beatríz de Justíz, La Marquesa
the proud Marchioness Justíz de Santa Ana
noble wife of Don Juan Manzano
who shares my name
eventhough
he is not
my father

Don Juan rules El Molino
his plantation
on this island of sugar
and many other
sweet illusions

These were my mother's duties:
dress La Marquesa
undress her
cool her skin with a palm-leaf fan
answer questions
never ask
collect milk from new mothers
in the huts
near the fields
slave milk, the lotion used for softening
the skin
of noble ladies

This my mother accomplished:
deliver the milk
grind eggshells and rice into powder
for making la cascarada
a pale shell for hiding
the darkness
of Spaniards
who pretend
to be pale
in our presence

When the noble ladies go out in public
milk-soothed, eggshell-crusted
masked and disguised
we no longer look the same
dark owner
and dark slaves

Now my owner is ghostly
inside her skeleton of powder
but I, being only a poodle,
can watch
I am allowed
to know
these truths
about shadow
and bright

So I listen
when the ghost-owner calls me her own baby
she plays with me
and even decides
to set my true mother
free

Free to marry Toribio de Castro
a man also promised
his freedom

My father is winged, like my mother
oh, I envy them
what will happen
to me
little bird
left behind in this haunted nest?

She takes me with her wherever she goes
I become the companion of my owner, noble ghost
no, not a companion, remember?
a poodle, her pet
with my curly dark hair
and small child's brown skin
suitable
for the theater
and parties

So I bark
on command
I learn to whine and howl
in verse
I'm known as the smart one who never
forgets
I can listen
then recite
every word

Listen, she says to her friends
and the priest
see how little Juanito can sing
see how I've trained him
watch him
perform

Back and forth
over and over
country home, city home, palaces, the plantation
only six years old, she says
but listen to his big funny
voice

Back and forth
over and over
I recite strange words in several languages
Spanish, Latin, French
while my sweet ghost-Mamá-owner
and all her friends
listen
they are forgetful
I am rememberful
I remember there is also one more mother
in my song
a bird-mother
caged
but winged
 

Copyright 2006 Margarita Engle
This text is from an uncorrected proof





Continues...

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Excerpted from The Poet Slave of Cuba by Engle, Margarita Copyright © 2006 by Engle, Margarita. Excerpted by permission.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

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Reading Group Guide

Discussion Questions

1. How did the slave experience of Juan Francisco Manzano in Cuba differ from that of slaves in the United States?

2. How did sugarcane contribute to the growth of slavery in Cuba?

3. What was the cultural hierarchy of Cuba during the 19th century? How was this revealed in The Poet Slave of Cuba?

4. What was the relationship between the individuals in The Poet Slave of Cuba? Create a diagram to assist in determining how each was connected to the other person.

5. What were the various skills and trades learned by Manzano? How were they acquired and how did he use these skills throughout his life?

6. Why was La Marquesa de Prado Ameno so sadistic in her relationship with Manzano? What do her actions tell us about her?

7. What type of interactions occurred between Manzano and Don Nicolás? Could Nicolás have assisted Juan in some way?

8. How do Sean Qualls' white, black, and gray illustrations enhance and extend the biography?

9. What do you feel is the most compelling moment or event of this story? Explain.

10. Would you film this biography in black and white or in color and why?

Editorial Reviews

Engle (Skywriting, for adults) achieves an impressive synergy between poetry and biography as she illuminates the tortured life of the 19th-century Cuban poet. Born a slave, Juan is kept like "a poodle, her pet/ with my curly dark hair/ and small child's brown skin," by his "godmother" and owner, Beatriz. She grants his birth parents manumission (for a price), while refusing to free Juan until her own death. Juan shows talent for memorization, and recites literature for Beatriz's amusement. Despite his mother's payment, Juan is transferred, at Beatriz's death, to another owner, the Marquesa de Prado Ameno, who punishes Juan cruelly. There he also secretly learns to read and write-posing a threat to the Marquesa and the social order. Engle's compelling poems shift in viewpoint among seven people, and the technique works beautifully: readers thus draw their own conclusions from Juan, his desperate parents, brutal owners, the Marquesa's sympathetic son and the conflicted Overseer. Juan's poems articulate both his enduring pain and dream of release ("I sit tied and gagged./ She is there, behind the curtain./ .../ She can't hear the stories I tell myself in secret"), while recurring bird imagery signifies elusive freedom. Quall's (The Baby on the Way) expressionistic half-tone illustrations extend Engle's exploration of race as a cornerstone of the social caste in Spanish colonial Cuba. (Juan and his family are dark-skinned; the women who own him use a powder of crushed eggshells and rice to lighten their complexion.) An author's note and excerpts from Manzano's own poetry round out this sophisticated volume. Ages 10-up. (Apr.) Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.

Publishers Weekly

Gr 7 Up-This is an absolutely lovely book about the unlovely subject of slavery. It is the biography of an extraordinary young man, with extraordinary intellectual powers, who was born into slavery in Cuba in 1797. Told in verse, it recounts the sufferings and trials of Manzano. As a boy, he was capable of memorizing and reciting poetic verses in many different languages. He could recount epic tales read to him, and in this way served as the entertainment for his mistress and her many guests. Later, when he became the property of a crueler mistress, his talents helped him endure numerous beatings and confinements. It is amazing that he was able to survive, and even more astonishing that he was able to maintain his humanity and his sensitive poetic nature. Manzano's sufferings are almost too painful to read about, but the experience is made bearable by Engle's skillful use of verse. Qualls's drawings are suitably stark and compelling, wonderfully complementing the text. This is an exceptional book on two levels. First, it introduces Manzano to an American public. Second, it introduces readers to slavery as it was practiced in a country other than the United States. Both are noteworthy. This is a book that should be read by young and old, black and white, Anglo and Latino.-Carol Jones Collins, Columbia High School, Maplewood, NJ Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.

School Library Journal

A work born out of love for the man and his poetry, this biography-in-verse pays tribute to Juan Francisco Manzano, who lived between 1797 and 1853. Like many verse novels, the biography is told through alternating points of view, including Juan's as he grows from childhood to adulthood. Separated from his mother and father, Juan is reared by a slaveholder who adores his genius with words. When he is 11, she passes away. Even though she promised him his freedom upon her death, he remains enslaved, this time to a mentally unbalanced woman who abuses him unmercifully. Amazingly, Juan sustains himself through the tiny kindnesses of others, brief opportunities to make art of any kind and an endless reservoir of hope. This powerful and accessible biography may significantly engage adolescent learners but it could be too brutal for sensitive elementary-school readers. Simple charcoal drawings accompany the text and capture its emotional and geographical atmosphere. (Biography. 10-14)

Kirkus Reviews

An absolutely lovely book . . . that should be read by young and old, black and white, Anglo and Latino.” —School Library Journal, Starred Review

“Readers will hear the stories––and never forget them.” —Booklist, Starred Review

“A work of literary imagination. Engle's skillful portrait will spark readers' interest in Manzano's own poetry.” —The Horn Book, Starred Review

“The moving poetry and finely crafted story will draw readers in and leave them in tears and in awe.” —The Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books, Starred Review

“A rare and stunning account . . . a tour-de-force.” —Juan Felipe Herrera, winner of the Pura Belpré Honor for Laughing out Loud, I Fly: Poems in English and Spanish

“I not only learned about an exceptional life—I felt it. Soul-stirring and direct.” —Nancy Osa, winner of the Pura Belpré Honor for Cuba 15

“Only a poet with Engle's delicate sensitivity could have presented the complexity of Manzano's life and the depth of his soul in such a brief, accessible, and enthralling book.” —Alma Flor Ada, winner of the Pura Belpré Medal for Under the Royal Palms

“Every once in a while a book comes along that is so heart-achingly beautiful, so pure, you want to tear down the doors and make the world take notice. This is one of those rare works.” —Cindy Wathen, co-author of Remembering Cesar: The Legacy of César Chávez

“This beautiful, unique biography reads and sounds like a symphony. Lyrical, informative, and inspiring.” —Teresa Dovalpage, author of A Girl Like Che Guevara

“Through this impassioned story we plunge into the inhuman depths of slavery and surge up with the Poet Slave to triumphant freedom.” —Anilú Bernardo, author of Jumping Off to Freedom

From the Publisher

Every once in a while a book comes along that is so heart-achingly beautiful, so pure, you want to tear down the doors and make the world take notice. This is one of those rare works.

co-author of Remembering Cesar: The Legacy of Cindy Wathen

Only a poet with Engle's delicate sensitivity could have presented the complexity of Manzano's life and the depth of his soul in such a brief, accessible, and enthralling book.

winner of the Pura Belpré Medal for Under t Alma Flor Ada

A rare and stunning account . . . a tour-de-force.

Juan Felipe Herrera

A soft male Hispanic voice begins the multivoiced biography of Cuban poet Juan Francisco Manzano, who lived between 1797 and 1853. Gentle rhythms accentuate the lyricism of Manzano's uniquely beautiful view of the world. Passionate descriptions express his vibrant love of life, learning, and words, despite the limitations of his enslaved childhood. Only later does bitterness creep into his tones as his parents are freed and Juan must serve a second cruel, possessive mistress. The female narrators who portray Juan's two mistresses and his mother more strongly emphasize the poetic form of the text itself. They create haunting tones that convey the pride of Juan's mistresses and the awe his mother had for her son's gifts. This is an audio to be savored by poetry lovers of all ages. S.W. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award © AudioFile 2009, Portland, Maine

JULY 2009 - AudioFile