The Nicaraguan poet, essayist and critic, Pablo Antonio Cuadra (1912-2002) was one of the most important representatives of the vanguardia movement, which sought to promote the native literary traditions of Nicaragua and to incorporate them into the international literary vanguard. 

Although influenced by classical poetry and the work of French innovators such as Verlaine, Rimbaud, and Baudelaire, Cuadra was always concerned with the identity of Latin America, constantly returning to peasant folklore, indigenous legends, and nature.  Employing colloquial language and orality, he talks about his country, its landscape, flora and fauna, connecting the Nicaraguan people to the nature and revealing their affective and contemplative relation to their environment. As Steven White has noted, in works such as El jaguar y la luna (The Jaguar and the Moon) and Siete árboles contra el atardecer (Seven Trees Against the Dying Light) adopts the mask of the shaman to deepen his knowledge of the flora and fauna of Nicaragua. A figure present in many of indigenous cultures of the Americas, an ecological dimension can be sensed in the shaman’s role as one who strikes a balance between humans and the landscape they inhabit. 

Among his main poetic works are Poemas nicaraguenses (1934), La tierra prometida (1952), El jaguar y la luna (1959), and Siete árboles contra el atardecer (1980).