Salomé Ureña de Henríquez has been called the first great poet of the Dominican Republic. Her name appears next to those of José Joaquín Pérez and Gastón Deligne, the other two Dominican poets who, together with her, are the most prominent figures of their generation. Some literary critics also place her name next to those of other Spanish American poets such as Ecuadoran José Joaquín Olmedo and Cubans José María Heredia and Gertrudis Gómez de Avellaneda. Her poetic works, close to sixty compositions, include the epic and the lyric, in a variety of meters and themes. Among the poems for which she is best known are "La gloria del progreso" (The Glory of Progress, 1873), "Ruinas" (Ruins, 1876), "La fe en el porvenir" (Faith in the Future, 1878), "Anacaona" (1880), and "Sombras...