Poet Creates Political Paean of Loss and Hope

By Rigoberto Gonzalez / Special to the Times

El Paso Times

 

Article Launched:12/24/2006 12:00:00 AM MST

 

Martín Espada is back in full form with his eighth book of poems, "The Republic of Poetry" (W.W. Norton, $23.95 hardcover), a collection that pays homage to the art of poetry as both a political and a curative power.

Invoking the country of Chile and its Nobel Laureate Pablo Neruda as muses and models for a utopian world in which poems are the essence of everyday life, Espada writes:

 

In the republic of poetry,

monks print verses about the night

on boxes of monastery chocolates,

kitchens in restaurants

use odes for recipes

from eel to artichoke,

and poets eat for free.

 

Though this republic is the goal, Espada keeps the dream grounded by pointing out what a hard-won victory this will be, and has been even for Chile: He reminds readers of the 1973 U.S.-backed coup against President Salvador Allende, the rise of dictator Augusto Pinochet, and the murder of political dissident and folk singer Víctor Jara.

 

But dictatorships are mortal, too, and in a poem about Pinochet's visit to a bookstore, the poet declares: "No books turned to ash at his touch É nor did his eyes glow red with a demon's heat." Poetry prevails. Neruda, it is believed, successfully dismissed an invasive military presence from his home with the phrase, "There is only one danger for you here: poetry."

 

From these historical events comes the cry of the people (indeed, the world):

 

For thirty years

we have been searching

for another incantation

to make the soldiers

vanish from the garden.

 

The second thread of Espada's project is in praise or honor of people with particular importance to the poet, including other bards like Robert Creeley and Julia de Burgos.

 

Espada does recognize, however, that even poetry as vehicle for expression has limitations. In the poem "Not Words but Hands," inspired by the tragic deaths of Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Yusef Komunyakaa's partner and their son, Espada writes, "But we have no words for you; / there is no name for the grief in your face."

 

Espada closes the book with a section titled "The Weather-Beaten Face," a series of personal poems about the poet's growth as an artist in the broken world, and how "somewhere between the rockets and the songs" lies the quiet that allows for reflection, healing and hope.

 

The collection comes full circle as Espada invokes the verses of Puerto Rican poet Clemente Soto Vélez and absorbs them into his being so as to learn how to live -- the first step toward the founding of a republic of poetry.

Facing the fact of the inability to procreate after his wife's hysterectomy, the speaker turns to poetry for comfort, guidance, and emotional release. "The Republic of Poetry" will no doubt offer the same for those who need to listen to the testimonies that give direction to the place where "troops drown in a monsoon of desert flowers tossed by the crowd."

Martín Espada is indeed a worthy prophet for a better world.

 

Rigoberto González is an award-winning writer living in New York City. His Web site is www.rigobertogonzalez.com, and he may be reached at Rigoberto70@aol.com