SOURCE: Cohen, Henry. “The Image of the United States in the Poetry of René Depestre and Ernesto Cardenal.” Revista Review Interamericana 11, no. 2 (summer 1981): 220–30.

In the following essay, Cohen compares representations of the United States in the poetry of Cardenal and of the Haitian poet René Depestre.

It is especially important at this particular time for students of interamerican affairs to know how the Haitian René Depestre and the Nicaraguan Ernesto Cardenal have portrayed the United States in their poetry of the past quarter century. First of all, by virtue of their extraordinary political status they are opinion leaders, respectively, in Cuba and El Salvador, those nations geographically closest to the U.S. whose present governments are also the most inimical to Washington. Secondly, since they are authors of world stature who write in French and Spanish, they have broadcast a view of the U.S. to a wide...