Introduction

This volume brings together two of Martí's key works, both published in New York in 1891. Simple Verses is a cycle of forty-six short poems in the plainest form of Spanish folk song, the eight-syllable quatrain, opening with 'I am an honest man from where the palm tree grows'. They speak of homeland, friendship, love, freedom and death in plain words heavy with meaning; some stanzas were later set to music as the song 'Guantanamera', sung around the world. Our America is a political essay in which Martí warns the nations of Latin America not to copy the institutions of Europe and the United States but to know their own land and people: 'Graft the world onto our republics, but the trunk must be our own.' He also warns of the danger from the powerful neighbour to the north. The essay is regarded as Latin America's declaration of intellectual independence.