This chapter addresses key currents in Cuban poetry, on and off the island, from 1989 to 2020, a body of work rich in experimentalism and in dialogue with the coloquialista [conversationalist] poetics that characterized earlier postrevolutionary poetry. Synthesizing the work of numerous poets, the chapter demonstrates that, with the disillusionment that accompanied the disintegration of the Socialist Bloc, poets such as Marilyn Bobes, Soleida Ríos, and the influential and award-winning Reina María Rodríguez were at the forefront of antiheroic representations and of reinvigorating philosophical thought through their lyrical work. The chapter also explores the embrace of detotalization, deterritorialization, intertextuality, and hybridity, contributing to forms of radical rupture in the poetry of Juan Carlos Flores, Omar Pérez, and Legna Rodríguez Iglesias, as well as the postmodern strategies, reflections on the act of writing, and new identitarian sites found in the work of Caridad Atencio and the group of seven Black poets/creators calling themselves “El Palenque.”

This chapter examines alternative cultural projects that emerged in Cuba from the 1980s into the new millennium: intellectual groupings, periodicals, and writing initiatives neither fully in the state’s purview nor fully outside of it. The chapter elucidates the national and international factors as well as intellectual and artistic goals marking such projects as Paideia (1989–1990), Diáspora(s) (1993–c.2002), Torre de Letras (2001–2016), OMNI Zona Franca (1995–?), and la noria (2009–) and notes their impact on the writers of Generation Zero, born in the late 1970s and early 1980s, who published some of their work in these venues. Although the chapter includes numerous writers, key figures addressed include Rolando Prats (Paideia); Reina María Rodríguez (Paideia and Torre de Letras); Rolando Sánchez Mejías, Carlos A. Aguilera, Ricardo Alberto Pérez, Pedro Marqués de Armas, and Rogelio Saunders (Diásporas); Juan Carlos Flores, Amaury Pacheco, David Escalona, Luis Eligio Pérez, Alina Guzmán, Nilo Julián González, Damián Valdés, and Jorge (Yoyi) Pérez (OMNI Zona Franca); and Oscar Cruz and José Ramón Sánchez (la noria).