Unión de Escritores y Artistas de Cuba / UNEAC - Colección David (cover designer: Darío Mora, author: Sigifredo Alvarez Conesa), "Matar el tiempo," 1967. Offset print, book.

The cover of "Matar el tiempo" (To Kill Time) presents Darío Mora's dynamic surrealist composition featuring intricate clockwork mechanisms pierced by dramatic white lightning bolts against a vibrant red-orange background. The mechanical imagery—showing detailed gears, clock faces, and temporal instruments—creates a powerful visual metaphor for the destruction or manipulation of time itself. Mora's design employs bold graphic style, with precise technical illustrations contrasted against explosive natural forces, perfectly capturing the tension between mechanical precision and organic disruption that runs through the poetry collection. The striking use of complementary colors and the integration of typography with imagery demonstrates the sophisticated visual approach that characterized UNEAC's Colección David series in the late 1960s.

Published as part of UNEAC's prestigious "Colección David" poetry series, this volume represents Sigifredo Alvarez Conesa's literary debut, having received an honorable mention in the 1967 David competition. The collection explores themes of temporality and resistance, as suggested by Francisco de Oraá's assessment that the work achieves "the creation of a verbal object resistant to its inevitable erosion"—a poetic strategy particularly resonant during the revolutionary period when artists sought to create lasting cultural monuments amid rapid social transformation.

Sigifredo Alvarez Conesa (b. 1938, Regla) initially pursued bachillerato studies before dedicating himself to theater, directing amateur groups in the provinces and later professional companies including "El Candil" and "Teatro Juvenil de La Habana." He has adapted various works for children's theater, demonstrating his commitment to revolutionary cultural education. "Matar el tiempo" marks his transition from theatrical direction to literary creation, bringing his dramatic sensibility to bear on poetic exploration. The collection's title suggests both the leisurely passage of time and its violent destruction—themes that would resonate with readers experiencing the accelerated pace of revolutionary change in 1960s Cuba, where traditional temporal rhythms were being fundamentally restructured by socialist transformation.