A review by robertrivasplata
Resistencia: Poems of Protest and Revolution by Julia Alvarez

adventurous challenging dark emotional funny hopeful informative inspiring reflective sad medium-paced

4.5

Collection of Latin American poems of resistance & protest from the last hundred years or so. Includes poets from the French-speaking Caribbean, & Brazil, also includes a number of poets writing in Mayan, Mapuche, Miskito, Quechua, among other indigenous languages. Each poem is presented in English & the original language it is written in, which is interesting to see the choices the translators made, & it's also great for someone learning Spanish, Mayan, etc. I liked the poet & translator bios at the end, but I wouldn't have minded even more info about all of them, & about the contexts of the poems themselves. I will need to look up music by Rebeca Lane, Margarita Losada Vargas, & Victor Jara. Interesting to note that most of the Nicaraguan Poets were prominent supporters of the FMLN//Sandinistas, but then broke with them in the late 80s-90s, perhaps supporting my theory that wars empower the psychos, & leave the poets out in the cold.