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ruinedbyreading's review against another edition
challenging
emotional
hopeful
reflective
sad
medium-paced
4.0
djinnofthedamned's review against another edition
5.0
I began reading this when the presidental debates started three months ago, and it would only be aprepo to finish it on the eve of election day.
As always, a collection of Espada poetry never ceases to disappoint. Chalked with politically charged, gritty poems, powerful lamentations on death, family, community, and resistance, Espada proves himself to be a poet of our time. He is a necessary voice that understands the many terrains of struggle that exist inside and outside social movements, as well as the materiality of peoples lives.
I gather Alabaza will be just as relevant in the years to come as it is today.
As always, a collection of Espada poetry never ceases to disappoint. Chalked with politically charged, gritty poems, powerful lamentations on death, family, community, and resistance, Espada proves himself to be a poet of our time. He is a necessary voice that understands the many terrains of struggle that exist inside and outside social movements, as well as the materiality of peoples lives.
I gather Alabaza will be just as relevant in the years to come as it is today.
gitli57's review against another edition
challenging
emotional
inspiring
4.5
One of my fave poetry reads for the year. These are older poems at this point, but they remain fresh. Espada's work is direct and expressive, without academic excess or self-conscious display of technique. He is politically alert and is passionate about social justice issues without being preachy. I found myself rereading passages just so I could keep nodding my head. This is a keeper and one to return to often.
ostrowk's review against another edition
4.0
"This is the year that squatters evict landlords, / gazing like admirals from the rail / of the roofdeck / or levitating hands in praise / of steam in the shower; / this is the year / that shawled refugees deport judges / who stare at the floor / and their swollen feet / as files fare stamped with their destinations..." (117).
"Alabanza. When the war began, from Manhattan and Kabul / two constellations of smoke rose and drifted to each other, / mingling in icy air, and one said with an Afghan tongue: / Teach me to dance. we have no music here. /And the other said with a Spanish tongue: / I will teach you. Music is all we have" (232).
Espada's poetry bristles with a left politics that exalts the dispossessed and indicts the ruling class, but it does so in a way that hardly stretches language; in fact, for poetry, it often felt flat in my mouth and dull on the page. Still, ALABANZA features two of my all-time favorite poems: "Imagine the Angels of Bread" (a revolutionary New Year's poem) and "Alabanza: In Praise of Local 100" (a poem for the union workers who died in 9/11). The collection also introduced me to a few others I really liked, and I'm ultimately so grateful for Espada. As he points out, "there are poets / who versify vacations in Tuscany, / the villa on a hill, the light of morning / ... poets who cannot sleep as they contemplate / the extinction of iambic pentameter" ( 227); he is not one of those frivolous poets. Instead, he's trying to lyrically tell the story of massacres brushed under the rug of history, of the evicted, of the immigrant, of the union worker, of the free press, of the kid in juvie so desperate to write poetry that he keeps landing himself time in solitary to write. Espada, in other words, is the people's poet: alabanza.
"Alabanza. When the war began, from Manhattan and Kabul / two constellations of smoke rose and drifted to each other, / mingling in icy air, and one said with an Afghan tongue: / Teach me to dance. we have no music here. /And the other said with a Spanish tongue: / I will teach you. Music is all we have" (232).
Espada's poetry bristles with a left politics that exalts the dispossessed and indicts the ruling class, but it does so in a way that hardly stretches language; in fact, for poetry, it often felt flat in my mouth and dull on the page. Still, ALABANZA features two of my all-time favorite poems: "Imagine the Angels of Bread" (a revolutionary New Year's poem) and "Alabanza: In Praise of Local 100" (a poem for the union workers who died in 9/11). The collection also introduced me to a few others I really liked, and I'm ultimately so grateful for Espada. As he points out, "there are poets / who versify vacations in Tuscany, / the villa on a hill, the light of morning / ... poets who cannot sleep as they contemplate / the extinction of iambic pentameter" ( 227); he is not one of those frivolous poets. Instead, he's trying to lyrically tell the story of massacres brushed under the rug of history, of the evicted, of the immigrant, of the union worker, of the free press, of the kid in juvie so desperate to write poetry that he keeps landing himself time in solitary to write. Espada, in other words, is the people's poet: alabanza.
thndrkat's review against another edition
5.0
The title poem brings tears to my eyes. It's a most noble tribute to the victims of violence in Afghanistan and the World Trade Center.
ginnybarns's review
4.0
I never thought I would enjoy political poetry so much. While that aspect was certainly very pronounced, and at first (in Espada’s early works) a little off setting, the poems themselves were successful. By that I mean to say that the statement Espada wanted to make didn’t interrupt the flow of his poems or the direction they needed to go in.
Being both Hispanic and a recent resident of New York state, I found the poems especially dear to me. Each character in Espada’s poems has a name and a history. As I read Alabanza I also felt the importance he recognizes in mankind’s individuality and culture, both which should never be generalized or ignored completely but so often are. The impression I was left with after reading was that I needed to pay closer attention to others, that while “a rose by any other name would smell as sweet” there is still such importance in a name because it is a label for one’s identity. In his poems I began to see each character as an entire world.
On another note, the imagery Espada creates within the more prose-like poems is dripping with sensual elements. The sounds of the languages spoken, the smell of burnt arroz y habichuelas, the image of palms dirty with soil and blood, etc. all help to place the reader inside the events and moments within his poems. I’ll never look at a cockroach the same way again.
Being both Hispanic and a recent resident of New York state, I found the poems especially dear to me. Each character in Espada’s poems has a name and a history. As I read Alabanza I also felt the importance he recognizes in mankind’s individuality and culture, both which should never be generalized or ignored completely but so often are. The impression I was left with after reading was that I needed to pay closer attention to others, that while “a rose by any other name would smell as sweet” there is still such importance in a name because it is a label for one’s identity. In his poems I began to see each character as an entire world.
On another note, the imagery Espada creates within the more prose-like poems is dripping with sensual elements. The sounds of the languages spoken, the smell of burnt arroz y habichuelas, the image of palms dirty with soil and blood, etc. all help to place the reader inside the events and moments within his poems. I’ll never look at a cockroach the same way again.
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