My book is called All of the World in Light by Juan Felipe Herrera. It is a collection of poems about Latinos in America. It's really cool because he very vividly describes the life of Latin Americans. You begin to feel what their culture is like and just what life is like for them. In his first poem A Certain Man he describes how life is for a man including what he eats, what he does and what he thinks. Herrera writes "Inside his stomach roast meat..." (Herrera 3). This minor detail about his life really helps develop a lifestyle and makes the reader feel like they know him. It makes eating roast meat seem like a very common thing. Herrera goes on to explain the exile of these Latins coming to America. What I think is really cool is how he then compares them to us and questions where our exile is. Why haven't we had one and they have? It's a beautiful poem describing their entrance into America and how we watch. In the prospective of a non-Latino he writes, "From here we see them, we the ones from here, not there or across, only here, without the bridge..." (Herrera 23). He connects all of us saying we are all the same. We are not from different places having just made a difficult pilgrimage. He explains the details of being on a boat ad entering a world unknown and also describes the details of simply watching it all happen.
I think what Herrera writes is very deep but in a cool way. He leaves some of his poems in spanish to really create the feeling of their culture. This is very different from what we have been looking at in the sense that we have been looking at plays about people who life in a city and have a king. One man to rule over them in a very classical way. This book is all about the new voyages to new places and starting new lives. The freedom to go where you want to but also the experiences you will face. I think the idea behind this book is really cool and the passion behind the poems is amazing.
Herrera, Jaun Felipe. All of the World in Light. Tucson, Arizona: University of Arizona Press, 2008.
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5 comments:
Your book has a very interesting subject. One would probably see Latinos in America as not a very significant idea, but this author seems to value its importance and wants to explore its different aspects. Latinos are usually considered people with normal lives, but now, I imagine that their peoples actually have a long historical background of migration and transformation. And just to clarify, he is writing about the present and not the past? The time period is not quite clear.
What a good choice for this quarter. The fact that it's poetry will make it easier to see connections to what we're doing in class and get more out of it, especially after we've already done our poetry unit. This book will probably give you a whole new perspective and open up new thoughts. It sounds like you're enjoying it so far!
I think the idea of immigration has become so common in our modern day where in America we have so many different backgrounds coming together to form our country. It's interesting to see one of the more recent peoples that have migrated to America and I think the fact that Herrera chooses to keep many parts in Spanish help to signify how no one wants to forget their past or give it up. I'm sure also if you speak Spanish, makes the book just that much more rich. I love Spain and Latin America, and could definitely see myself reading this in the future.
I agree with Brenden that your book seems to make a race that a lot of people don't look twice at and show their extraordinary background. I also really liked the quote you have about people not really coming from different places, but having different pilgrimages. It certainly makes one think twice about racial barriers
I agree with Brenden that this is a very interesting subject. This subject is not talked about very often so havig a whole book on it is very intriguing. Although people don't seem to talk about Latino's very much, the topic of immigration is extremely popular. The fact that this is a book of poems obviously fits the unit we are studying in class right now. Great choice tina!
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