A review by jennifermreads
Dreams from Many Rivers: A Hispanic History of the United States Told in Poems by Margarita Engle

5.0

Poetry tells the stories of Indigenous and Latinx people and their march through time (as they were marched over by Spaniards and other Europeans). This small volume moves quickly through time, 1491 to 2018, using a combination of fictional and biographical voices. An introductory note talks about what the author hoped to (and did) accomplish: “portray a few glimpses of a vast and complicated past.” It was beautiful in its depiction of the vicious history and left readers on a note of hope: “We have to be leaders, not followers, so that we’ll never again be herded like sheep toward a helpless slaughter. We are the hopeful future, triumphing over this country’s troubled past.”