— Anonymous
I consider “I Am an Honest Man” by Jose Marti to be a great work because of the way he opens himself up such as the experiences he’s had. Starting off with me preferring poems over stories, this is in my top three poems. In the description of Jose Marti it mentioned, “Marti’s best-known poem, “I Am an Honest Man,” with its values of sincerely, simplicity, and intense emotion, astonished readers when it first appeared, dramatically overturning dominant traditions of Spanish poetry that had valued complex, artful structures and Romantic sentimentality.” I agree with this quote, he has that something special that makes this poem sound so good. Another quote in the text, “This poem has long been beloved by Cubans, but it became world famous when it was set to be tune of Guantanamera, a popular Cuban melody.” This shows how great of a poem this was. This poem spoke to me the most when it said, “I’ve seen a man who lives with a dagger at his side, never uttering the name of his murderess.” because I felt so bad to know what some people lived through due to current historical events and I never seen or experienced things like these. It is so horrible to know that there are still people that selfish till this day. I have seen a lot of movies related to what Jose Marti has experienced but I never thought that they were true when I was a kid, until now reading his poem. I should feel lucky to not having experienced such things like seeing all horrible things happening around me because it would affect mentally, which is a really bad thing. I believe this should be considered a canon because this is an OG meaning original piece of work that cannot be overthrown or replaced. At first, I didn’t understand the poem as well until I had a discussion with some of my colleagues about what is the meaning behind this poem. Afterwards, I realized why this was a great masterpiece as I could understand it better than others due to my Hispanic background.
