In Martin Espada’s “Rain without Rain,” he uses juxtaposing descriptions and emotions to comment on the “celebration” that was actually masking an immense sadness. In class, we discussed how many poets and writers these days choose to put a film over what they are really writing about. We are used to doing this in modern times, and with the help of social media and filters and facebook updates, it’s just as easy said as it is done. But here, in Espada’s poem, his use of setting the stage first with a celebration acts to make the reality of this poem hit much deeper.
In the beginning of his poem, he writes, “The celebration of a century since Neruda’s birth/ brings pilgrims by the thousands to his house/ fingering the rust off the locomotive in his garden/ shouting Whitman in Spanish over the sea.” When reading this without knowing the context of Neruda or the history of Chile, readers might just think that this is a celebration of someone’s life. Pilgrims coming back to the place of the deceased, everyone shouting poetry from the time he was alive, it all sounds like something normal to do when celebrating someone who has passed. At funerals, we often read loved one’s favorite poetry or book or songs, and we always try to meet in one place just as the Pilgrims did. So, just by reading these first few lines, nothing seems out of the ordinary.
As the poem evolves, we come to learn that this is anything but the truth. Espada writes, “Yet there is rain without rain in the air/ In the horseshoe path of the poet’s tomb/ they walk, lips sewn up by the seamstress grief.” There is an obvious change in tone from the first stanza to the second. Where Espada was using diction such as “celebration” and “shouting” seem happy and lively, he replaces these words with “tomb” and “grief” which now seem anything but lively and happy. There is an eerie sense of loss and despair in these lines that only continues to grow as the poem unfolds.
Espada continues, writing, “Gives us the bones for the coffin/ give us the coffin for the grave/ give us the grave for the gravestone/ give us the gravestone so we can sleep,” one of the most devastating sections of the poem in my opinion. What was first described as a celebration is not a group mourning and calling out for closure that they never received. Espada describes a specific instance when he writes, “A girl, ten years old, wears the picture of a boy/ also ten, wandered off long ago in the dictator’s carnival/ this is my uncle, she says, I never met him.” Rather than keeping the poem dedicated to group mourning, Espada narrows it down into specific people and their stories. He closes the poem with, “Tonight I can write the saddest verse.”
There is a lot to say about a poet that can leave everything out there with raw and honest words. Espada not only stabbed us with emotion, but he continued to not let us forget it. Even without knowing the context of this poem, it is more than evident that this is not a celebration; this is a longing for answers and release from torturous times for these people. Good poetry makes us feel deeper than we thought we could. Sometimes we get that feeling with Whitman, probably the same feeling described by the Pilgrims shouting Whitman in Spanish across the sea. Espada has created not only a written account of such horrible events, but he doesn’t sugar coat one aspect of it. He demands for people to know and remember what happened to the people of Chile. The celebration definitely turned into the saddest verses.
https://www.miamiherald.com/news/nation-world/world/article62330907.html
In the same way that Whitman tried to be a voice for the voiceless, I see the same attempt through the powerful lines of poetry in Martin Espada’s poem. This dagger of emotion is meant to trigger a movement and to start a conversation about the horrible events plaguing the people of Chile. The medium of poetry shows its true potential and power when utilized in the way that Espada uses it. These conversations don’t begin with cookie cutter lines of poetry, but rather through the truth of diction, no matter how difficult the pill is to swallow.
I love how you discussed the decent into immense sadness in the poem. What really caught me off guard in this poem is the shift from positive connotations with associated with “celebration” to more negative conotations of the word. In this poem, Espada shifts our understanding of what this celebration is. However, I don’t necessarily think that this shift is meant to demonize or throw a negative light on their celebration. Quite the opposite in fact. To Espada, this is still a celebration for life and death.