I am like Don Quixote

¿Do you think I’ve lost my mind from reading so very much? Or have I gained true wisdom from the books I’ve read? The pain of the oppressed strikes me like a club. Modern giants (take note) I attack with chivalry. Do you know who I resemble? I am like Don Quixote. 

And I fly toward the windmills to right the wrongs of the world. I travel through cities and deserts, without a Sancho. The cunning ones slip away along the roads. I do not want evil to rise again. I stand firm. I keep moving. My hand is raised high. I am of a tempered spirit. I am like Don Quixote.

 I am a Knight-Errant of a living, present time. I fight for humanity. I fight on foot, without Rocinante. I am a Knight-Errant. Evil has become a scourge. I will hold my head high. I am righteous—righteous and bold. I have already drawn my sword. I am like Don Quixote.

Delsa López Lorenzo. Cuba. Retired from the Credit and Commerce Bank of Yaguajay. Poet and storyteller; she writes for both children and adults. She serves as the Cuban director of the magazine América sin Fronteras (America Without Borders), founded in Mexico by Dr. José Ángel Ramírez. She has been accredited as an Ambassador of Peace by humanist organizations and was honored as a “Distinguished Woman” in the Mujeres Ilustres (Distinguished Women) program of Sancti Spíritus province, hosted by Saylí Alba Álvarez.

She has served as a juror for both in-person municipal events and online international events. She is an accredited member of the Mother Tongue Chair at the Simón Bolívar Municipal University Center (CUM). In Yaguajay, Sancti Spíritus, Cuba, she hosts various ongoing cultural programs sponsored by the Raúl Ferrer Promotion Center. These include Poesía para la vida (Poetry for Life), the Bernardo Amador Yunes Literary Workshop, and special programs serving the elderly, prison inmates, pregnant women, children with special needs, primary and secondary school students, and children in daycare centers, as well as workshops on décima poetry and repentismo (improvisational verse). Her work has been included in anthologies across Europe, Latin America, the United States, Cuba, Spain, Peru, Ecuador, Argentina, Mexico, and other countries.

She has won numerous awards in Cuba and abroad and has been featured in magazines, newspapers, and radio and television programs both in her home country and internationally. Her publications include the poetry collection for adults Réquiem para un amor (Mexico); the children’s and young adult storybook Paraíso de mascotas (Cuba); and the children’s books Juan Pirindingo y otros cuentos and Saltarina y el maja rastrero (United States). Her poetry collection for adults, Clamores de un hacedor de versos, is currently being edited for publication in Cuba.