The Cuban poet and repentista Juan Carlos García Guridi published on his Facebook profile a triptych of sonnets titled "To the Charity of El Cobre", consisting of "Devotion," "Faith," and "Supplication," in which he transforms the devotion to Cuba's patroness into a collective call for health, freedom, and hope.
The publication was made on the eve of Tuesday the 8th, a date when Cubans celebrate the Virgin of Charity of El Cobre, and amidst an ongoing humanitarian crisis.
The triptych revisits the myth of the Three Juanes and transforms it into a metaphor for today's Cubans. In "Devotion," García Guridi writes: "Rowers who number almost eleven million / and ensure that the Virgencita de la Caridad resides in every corner." The figure resonates with bitterness: Cuba's effective population fell to 9.43 million by the end of 2025, according to the National Office of Statistics and Information.
The decline is primarily driven by an exodus that resulted in a negative net migration of 251,221 people in 2024 and another 245,264 in 2025
In "Faith," the poet presents a request before the Virgin that the regime has failed to provide: "I will only ask you for what is necessary: / Health and freedom! -never lineage-." The sonnet anchors the poem in the sacred geography of Cuban devotion —"In Nipe I want to deposit my Faith -the one I have for you- just like in your Sanctuary—."
The climax comes in "Ruego," where the poetic voice moves away from contemplation and raises an urgent plea: "Come with Los Tres Juanes to my shore, / my shore that is the same as the one outside... / Do not abandon the poor soul waiting for you / with your Child, your mantle, and your little boat." Before the final verse, García Guridi writes: "Adrift, no... This is not how I want you," an image that encapsulates the situation of a country where power outages exceed 20 hours daily in some areas and where 94% of the population lives in extreme poverty, according to the Cuban Observatory of Human Rights.
And to cap it all off, the poet concentrates the energy of a plea that reflects an entire island: "save us with your warrior spirit; Cuba needs you, Holy Virgin."
This poem is the latest entry in a series of socially critical compositions that García Guridi has shared throughout 2026. In July, he published "I ASK", featuring lines such as “What have they done to us? I ask / as we lose day by day / our dignity, our joy”. At the end of August, a décima espinela with photographs documented the accumulation of trash in Bejucal, Mayabeque, concluding with “that we have become / a country of trash.”
And the day before the Marian triptych, spoke out in defense of journalist José Gabriel Barrenechea, sentenced to six years in prison for participating in a pot-banging protest in Encrucijada, Villa Clara, a sentence that the People's Supreme Court upheld on July 28, 2026.
Born in Batabanó, Mayabeque, in 1968, García Guridi is a literary researcher with over ten published books on décima and Cuban popular poetry, a member of UNEAC, and a participant in the Ala Décima Group. In August, he shared the poem "Catarsis" with the verse: "To endure in silence / is not worthy of a medal: / A poet when silent / dies but of silence."
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