Cuban Poet Gaston Baquero Dies

MADRID, Spain (AP) - Gaston Baquero, a Cuban poet who went into exile in Spain after the 1959 revolution, died Thursday of a cerebral hemorrhage, the state news agency EFE said.

Baquero, who once described poetry as ``fermented infancy,'' was the author of ``Memorial of a Witness,'' ``Magic and Inventions'' and ``Invisible Poems.''

He was hospitalized a week ago, EFE said, citing family sources.

Baquero, a naturalized Spanish citizen and Madrid resident, called for close ties between Cuba's exiled writers and those still on the island, but abstained from public comment on Cuban politics.

Born into a poor family in Cuba's Oriente province on May 4, 1918, Baquero published his first poems and articles at age 18. After earning a degree in agronomy, he became a popular columnist for the daily Diario de la Marina.

In 1947, he made his first trip to Spain, where he was awarded the Order of Alfonso X the Wise, and later received Cuba's Justo de Lara prize and the Jose Antonio Rivero national prize. He also received awards in Peru, Venezuela, Panama, Haiti and Portugal.

Baquero became a professor of Hispanic literature and history at Madrid's Official Journalism School and also wrote essays on criticism.

He is survived by Rita Perez Baquero, a niece who lives in New York City, EFE said. He was to be cremated on Friday at Madrid's Almudena cemetery.

AP-NY-05-15-97 2322EDT