The Profound Meaning of Sensemaya Becoming Silenced Through Music

AUTHOR: Elizabeth Chavez Becerril
FACULTY: Jennie Daniels
DEPARTMENT: Spanish Department

ABSTRACT

Sensemaya, a poem written by Nicolas Guillen, taps into the African aspect of Cuba's multicultural nation, which was heavily influenced by African slaves during the colonial era. Through rhythm and symbolic figures, the poem expresses similarities to African Congo rhythms that are carried throughout the poem but become limited in the reinterpretation of Sensemaya. The reinterpretation of Sensemaya, composed by Silvestre Revueltas, seems to remove the spiritual and cultural meanings behind the poem, only to replace them with a superficial understanding of Africa. Once the poem is turned into a symphonic piece, the meaning behind the living figures in the poem are replaced by a musical interpretation of a jungle. Therefore, the poems original meaning loses the importance of the pauses and breaths taken throughout it’s reading, as well as the connection to spiritual beings, cherished in the Congo and other African tribes. In other words, the correlation between the poem and the symphonic piece has a limited tie, other than just the title of the piece, which ultimately creates a rift between the musicians' interpretation and the poem, Sensemaya.