Choose one of the four contemporary poems on the syllabus for tonight and discuss it. In your discussion, you might want to do one of the following things:
- Provide a short explication of the poem, talking about what the poem means as it unfolds
- Discuss the poem in relation to a theme that we’ve examined previously in the course (religion/spirituality, male/female relations, female sexuality, figures from myth and culture, use of language/Spanglish, images of nature, the struggle against tyranny, etc.)
- Compare the poem to a work we’ve read previously in the class
- Choose some particularly memorable or startling images or lines and discuss them in more detail
- Talk about how the poet’s oral reading or performance of the poem affects or changes our simple reading of it on the page
Listening to Yesenia Montilla’s “a brief meditation on breath,” I was surprised at how her performance changed the breaks and lineation of the poem, as opposed to how I imagined it when just reading it. When I was reading it originally, as I do with most poems, I imagined a similar speed for each line, similar breaks at the end of each; When Montilla reads, there can be pauses in the middle of a line, flow between one line and the next. It seems like she tends to emphasize based on meaning rather than the format of the poem, making it have a flow more like natural conversation or speech. And, of course, the way she reads as well as just the sound of her voice very much fit the theme of breath, or lack of breath, whether its physical or emotional— in certain words like “exhale” she breaks the word in two, or pushes two lines into one like “tightly/ near.” The meaning of the word itself determines how the poem is read, not which line its on or where it falls in the poem.
I love the topic of this poem— Montilla says it was written before George Floyd was killed, but reading it after it becomes even more poignant. This shows, though, that she was able to write a poem which is universal enough to still be relatable regardless of time, even when specific of its topics of COVID and the killing of black people in America. Her word choice slowly and naturally brings in this topic— it begins by focusing more on COVID but then words like “fire,” “fast or slow,” “down your neck.” All the words relating to police still keep with the imagery of breathing. My favorite line was “i am a ball of tense/ living, a tumble weed with steel-toed/ boots.”
While reading “a brief meditation on breath” by Yesenia Montilla, I found her style of writing to be interesting in the way that she utilizes enjambment and line breaks. By doing so, the poem can be read at a faster pace and we as readers are able to place more emphasis on certain words that lines end with as they flow into the next line. For example, in the first two lines, “i have diver’s lungs from holding my / breath for so long. i promise you” (1-2), the reader is forced to almost hold their own breath when reciting this out loud. The break between “my” and “breath” is essential to portraying the importance of breathing as well. Continuing with the inspection of her stylistic writing techniques, you can see how enjambment is crucial to the success of this poem. A number of lines flow into each other to drag a thought on or to linger on something of importance. One section that deemed most important to me on my read was lines 33-35, “they say it’s so contagious it could be quite / breathtaking. so persistent it might as well / be breathing down your neck—” I really enjoyed the break between “quite” and “breathtaking” because it was like having to actually pause as if something was taking your breath away as you were reading it aloud. And then we have the visual space between “breathing” and “down your neck” that creates an aesthetic image within the poem that physically separates the words and further associates the way in which breathing down someone’s neck feels. All of this is heightened as well in her audio version of this poem as it is quite breathy and there are a number of line breaks emphasized through exaggerated pauses. All of these techniques she uses really help to portray themes of anxiety, life, and death, especially with the repetition of breathing and fear.
“White Men on OK Cupid” (“Survival Tactics”) by Yesika Salgado is a poem that portrays white male savior complex. He thinks that just because she is brown, she needs saving. This man who has messaged her on OK Cupid is fetishizing her as well as stereotyping her, putting her into a category of “the smart kind of Mexican”, despite her profile stating she is Salvadorian, and only is interested in brown men. To her, a brown man has lived the same life as her. He has seen the world through her eyes, and experienced the same type of racism and generalizations that she has received. She says ” I can only love somebody that doesn’t look like who took everything”. This refers to the way white men have colonized Latinas, and the god complex they carry. This man messaging her sees her as lesser than him, simply because of her skin color.
Yesika Salgado’s poem “White Men on OK Cupid” (or “Survival Tactics”) examines an intersection of sex and race in the context of an online dating platform. Salgado recounts when the white man questions her on why she doesn’t date white men. The white man objectifies and stereotypes Salgado when he expresses how he prefers “curvy Latinas”, and makes assumtions about her character based on prejudicial ideas. He remarks how she “probably has a temper” and that’s “sexy” to him. The white man talks with a sense of entitlement and superiority, claiming he can be the exception. The poem’s purpose is to expose the underlying racism and control white men today still carry around. Salgado also embraces herself and her race in her conclusion. She is resistant towards the white man’s control and refuses to conform to any expectation of his. Her line “I am only willing to love / my reflection” demonstrates self-love, and adds to the importance of dating individuals like her. Individuals who can understand and empathize with the complexities of Salgado’s identity. Overall, the purpose of this poem is to shed light on not only dating as a female POC, but living as one. In every corner of her life, a white man will find a way to insert himself to objectify and colonize in any way he can, and she has to work to dismantle those opressive narratives.
Melissa Lozada-Oliva’s poem “Maybe She’s Born With It, Maybe She Got Up Early” demonstrates intergenerational behavior. The narrator is clearly a young schoolgirl surrounded by urban Whiteness. The author’s choice to use the word ‘melucha’ in the twenty-fifth line signifies her Columbian heritage while her choice to begin the poem stating, “i don’t know who or what the “good immigrant” is” clues the audience that her family is not originally from the US. Her mom is teaching her the power of beauty in a way that none of the American girls have had to be trained. We can tell she is being judged by her peers for her knowledge and awareness of beauty as they lace words such as ephemeral in condescension and make themselves feel smarter. I believe this is also why she refers to her mother as “the cleaning lady” swapping “white lady house it was a white lady body”. This metaphor to me was the most powerful and foundational piece of the poem because it also shows how her mother’s projection of beauty standards was through the white gaze of Eurocentricity. The performance of laboring on White lady bodies became her answer to solving problems teaching her daughter that “the best revenge was looking your best”. This was a painful lesson for our narrator not just physically but emotionally because she also is hearing that beauty is not long-lasting from the very kids who will grow up to be her mother’s paying customers and will also quite the pampering luxury the moment they can no longer afford it.