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Jailbreak of Sparrows: Poems
In this brilliant new collection of poems, National Book Award winner Martín Espada offers narratives of the forgotten and the unforgettable.
The poems in Jailbreak of Sparrows reveal the ways in which the ordinary becomes family portraits, politically charged reports, and tributes to the unsung. Espada’s focus ranges from the bombardment of his family’s hometown in Puerto Rico amid an anti-colonial uprising to the murder of a Mexican man by police in California, from the poet’s adolescent brawl on a basketball court over martyred baseball hero Roberto Clemente to his unorthodox methods of representing undocumented migrants as a tenant lawyer. We also encounter “love songs” to the poet’s wife from a series of unexpected a bat with vertigo, the polar bear mascot for a minor league ballclub, a disembodied head in a jar.
Jailbreak of Sparrows is a collection of arresting poems that roots itself in the image, the musicality of language, and the depth of human experience. “Look at this was all he said, and all he had to say,” the poet says about his father, a photographer who documented his Puerto Rican community in Brooklyn and beyond. The poems of Martín Espada tell Look.
The poems in Jailbreak of Sparrows reveal the ways in which the ordinary becomes family portraits, politically charged reports, and tributes to the unsung. Espada’s focus ranges from the bombardment of his family’s hometown in Puerto Rico amid an anti-colonial uprising to the murder of a Mexican man by police in California, from the poet’s adolescent brawl on a basketball court over martyred baseball hero Roberto Clemente to his unorthodox methods of representing undocumented migrants as a tenant lawyer. We also encounter “love songs” to the poet’s wife from a series of unexpected a bat with vertigo, the polar bear mascot for a minor league ballclub, a disembodied head in a jar.
Jailbreak of Sparrows is a collection of arresting poems that roots itself in the image, the musicality of language, and the depth of human experience. “Look at this was all he said, and all he had to say,” the poet says about his father, a photographer who documented his Puerto Rican community in Brooklyn and beyond. The poems of Martín Espada tell Look.
128 pages, Hardcover
Published April 1, 2025
6 people are currently reading
87 people want to read
About the author
Martín Espada
60 books107 followersSandra Cisneros says: “Martín Espada is the Pablo Neruda of North American authors.” Espada was born in Brooklyn, New York in 1957. He has published thirteen books in all as a poet, essayist, editor and translator. His eighth collection of poems, The Republic of Poetry, was published by Norton in October, 2006. Of this new collection, Samuel Hazo writes: "Espada unites in these poems the fierce allegiances of Latin American poetry to freedom and glory with the democratic tradition of Whitman, and the result is a poetry of fire and passionate intelligence." His last book, Alabanza: New and Selected Poems, 1982-2002 (Norton, 2003), received the Paterson Award for Sustained Literary Achievement and was named an American Library Association Notable Book of the Year. An earlier collection, Imagine the Angels of Bread (Norton, 1996), won an American Book Award and was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award. Other books of poetry include A Mayan Astronomer in Hell’s Kitchen (Norton, 2000), City of Coughing and Dead Radiators (Norton, 1993), and Rebellion is the Circle of a Lover’s Hands (Curbstone, 1990). He has received numerous awards and fellowships, including the Robert Creeley Award, the Antonia Pantoja Award, an Independent Publisher Book Award, a Gustavus Myers Outstanding Book Award, the Charity Randall Citation, the Paterson Poetry Prize, the PEN/Revson Fellowship and two NEA Fellowships. He recently received a 2006 John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship. His poems have appeared in The New Yorker, The New York Times Book Review, Harper’s, The Nation, and The Best American Poetry. He has also published a collection of essays, Zapata’s Disciple (South End, 1998); edited two anthologies, Poetry Like Bread: Poets of the Political Imagination from Curbstone Press (Curbstone, 1994) and El Coro: A Chorus of Latino and Latina Poetry (University of Massachusetts, 1997); and released an audiobook of poetry on CD, called Now the Dead will Dance the Mambo (Leapfrog, 2004). Much of his poetry arises from his Puerto Rican heritage and his work experiences, ranging from bouncer to tenant lawyer. Espada is a professor in the Department of English at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst, where he teaches creative writing and the work of Pablo Neruda.
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
February 20, 2025
I’m a person who believes that poetry should be incorporated into other subjects within our education system. This book reminds me of that position. While it could be considered a memoir in poetry, it is also a form of historical testifying about the struggles of those who came before us, what they believed in and how that belief directed their activities. This is a book of portraits that would make a great addition to a class in American History, showing how it is connected to other histories across time and providing a glimpse into how it impacts everyday lives of the ordinary people making it. There are ample notes in the back of the book about historical figures and events referred to in the poetry so that there’s little need to put the book down.
Two topics I wouldn’t necessarily think to put together meld beautifully in this book: social justice and baseball. Espada’s passion for both results in an interesting juxtaposition of two grand passions that are not mutually exclusive for him.
Throughout Espada’s poetry, we are aware of his connection to Puerto Rico and its struggles, but also more broadly to the Caribbean, Latino/a, Chicano/a, and Hispanic culture. These things all bleed together and are part of the American experience as well, less fringe or “other” than many people want to believe.
Because the subject of social justice struggles can be intense, I was thankful for the third section which allows Espada to engage in quirky love poems. They’re the break we need before the fourth section of the book that plunges us back into the events of recent years. We have a sense, after having read the earlier memoir sections and the love poems of what sustains him through continued injustices that can’t be ignored.
The poetry in this book leans toward long lines and storytelling, which results in longer poems. The most commonly and effectively used poetic language was the repetition of words or phrases. In other words, the story told takes precedence over poetic style. This is not a criticism. In fact, it makes the poetry clear and accessible to a broad audience–and again makes it ideal for inclusion in classrooms where poetry isn’t traditionally included.
The overall effect of reading from Espada’s early influences and experiences and the lives of the many, varied people he chose to represent in his poetry is a keen sense of the vagaries of individual fortune that require a compassionate approach to other people and a clear-eyed approach to history and justice. Difficulties and triumphs come and go. We don’t choose the times we live in, the currents we’re caught in. The people we cross paths with, align with, and how we treat one another (individually and socially) is what sticks in memory across time and creates an individual legacy. In the case of Espada, it also creates a legacy of social awareness worth preserving.
This book was provided to me as a digital ARC by Knopf via NetGalley. It's due to be published April 1, 2025.
Two topics I wouldn’t necessarily think to put together meld beautifully in this book: social justice and baseball. Espada’s passion for both results in an interesting juxtaposition of two grand passions that are not mutually exclusive for him.
Throughout Espada’s poetry, we are aware of his connection to Puerto Rico and its struggles, but also more broadly to the Caribbean, Latino/a, Chicano/a, and Hispanic culture. These things all bleed together and are part of the American experience as well, less fringe or “other” than many people want to believe.
Because the subject of social justice struggles can be intense, I was thankful for the third section which allows Espada to engage in quirky love poems. They’re the break we need before the fourth section of the book that plunges us back into the events of recent years. We have a sense, after having read the earlier memoir sections and the love poems of what sustains him through continued injustices that can’t be ignored.
The poetry in this book leans toward long lines and storytelling, which results in longer poems. The most commonly and effectively used poetic language was the repetition of words or phrases. In other words, the story told takes precedence over poetic style. This is not a criticism. In fact, it makes the poetry clear and accessible to a broad audience–and again makes it ideal for inclusion in classrooms where poetry isn’t traditionally included.
The overall effect of reading from Espada’s early influences and experiences and the lives of the many, varied people he chose to represent in his poetry is a keen sense of the vagaries of individual fortune that require a compassionate approach to other people and a clear-eyed approach to history and justice. Difficulties and triumphs come and go. We don’t choose the times we live in, the currents we’re caught in. The people we cross paths with, align with, and how we treat one another (individually and socially) is what sticks in memory across time and creates an individual legacy. In the case of Espada, it also creates a legacy of social awareness worth preserving.
This book was provided to me as a digital ARC by Knopf via NetGalley. It's due to be published April 1, 2025.
December 15, 2025
These poems are acts of activism, of tribute, memory, and memorial. Each poem is a titrated story, the emotions condensed, the eccentricities of individuals and of moments so masterly tweezed out, isolated, and stated into being. These are poems that make life feel impossibly large, the people in these pages are so exquisitely characterized. Everything and everyone felt so real. And I absolutely devoured the series of love poems in the middle, which were so oddball, imaginative, and earnest at the same time.
This collection is tough to sum-up because this was poetry at its simultaneously most readable and most poetical and raw. This is poetry as reportage, as autobiography, as narrative, and as protest anthem. This is political art at its finest and rawest. These make me wish more obituaries and news articles were poetry, that mainstream people still wrote each other love poems on Valentine's Day.
These poems absolutely transported me. I traveled from scenes of Espada's life to scenes from Latin American history. I traveled from kitchen to school to courtroom to graveyard. I experienced contemporary moments of injustice and political divisiveness in a way that felt constructive and informative as well as beautifully moving. Espada writes with the clarity of a first-hand witness as well as a skilled reporter, teacher, and friend. In these poems, he does the essential work of making tragedy more real, of giving appropriate attention and commemoration to human suffering. His words breathe life into past events and the people that populated them. I was incredibly moved by the humanity in these poems. This is the second poetry collection I've read by Martin Espada, and this positive reading experience has cemented him into my personal favorites, and reminds me that he has an award-winning collection that I have yet to get to! I am excited to revisit these poems in the future and to seek out more of his collections!
Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher!
This collection is tough to sum-up because this was poetry at its simultaneously most readable and most poetical and raw. This is poetry as reportage, as autobiography, as narrative, and as protest anthem. This is political art at its finest and rawest. These make me wish more obituaries and news articles were poetry, that mainstream people still wrote each other love poems on Valentine's Day.
These poems absolutely transported me. I traveled from scenes of Espada's life to scenes from Latin American history. I traveled from kitchen to school to courtroom to graveyard. I experienced contemporary moments of injustice and political divisiveness in a way that felt constructive and informative as well as beautifully moving. Espada writes with the clarity of a first-hand witness as well as a skilled reporter, teacher, and friend. In these poems, he does the essential work of making tragedy more real, of giving appropriate attention and commemoration to human suffering. His words breathe life into past events and the people that populated them. I was incredibly moved by the humanity in these poems. This is the second poetry collection I've read by Martin Espada, and this positive reading experience has cemented him into my personal favorites, and reminds me that he has an award-winning collection that I have yet to get to! I am excited to revisit these poems in the future and to seek out more of his collections!
Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher!
December 25, 2025
Recommended: sure
For a range of styles of poetry, for one Puerto Rican perspective, for some deep cutting feelings
Thoughts:
I totally stumbled upon this. I went to "poetry" as a genre in Libby for my library, I searched by Title A-Z, I scrolled to J, and there were two tiles, between which Espada easily won! The first portion focuses most on stories about his father, and about his connection (or lack thereof) to Puerto Rico and being Puerto Rican. I felt a bit drained or worn after reading them somehow. I think it's the way the line breaks are, it just flaffs my brain and I have to work hard to hold the full meaning being conveyed. Hearing about his history and tiny slices of perspective that are otherwise unknown to me is a joy though.
The middle section shifted style a bit to more traditional poetry, where each line is somewhat of a thought or phrase, versus the earlier sections where it would break in a sentence and I'd have to connect the multiple pieces together. Here, I was able to follow it line by line. The series of love poems were so quirky and unique, and they hold "love" in an unusual way that I really adored. They are not sappy. Honestly, they're not even all that "romantic" at least not by traditional means. But I did connect with the unusual depictions shown and how even ugly things can have beauty when viewed with love.
The back half was perhaps the heaviest, with some memorial pieces of those who've died. Largely racial violence and police abuse and all the systemic bullshit we've been dealing with in United States for years and years and years. I don't really want to say I "enjoyed" those poems because of course the facts of them are shitty, but I appreciated the message. It was a ray of solidarity, expressed in a very elegant yet forceful way that puts to words feelings that, for me, are usually too messy to neatly express in words.
Overall, I'm quite glad I found this collection. It had a range of personal to collective, and of more traditional to more creative.
For a range of styles of poetry, for one Puerto Rican perspective, for some deep cutting feelings
Thoughts:
I totally stumbled upon this. I went to "poetry" as a genre in Libby for my library, I searched by Title A-Z, I scrolled to J, and there were two tiles, between which Espada easily won! The first portion focuses most on stories about his father, and about his connection (or lack thereof) to Puerto Rico and being Puerto Rican. I felt a bit drained or worn after reading them somehow. I think it's the way the line breaks are, it just flaffs my brain and I have to work hard to hold the full meaning being conveyed. Hearing about his history and tiny slices of perspective that are otherwise unknown to me is a joy though.
The middle section shifted style a bit to more traditional poetry, where each line is somewhat of a thought or phrase, versus the earlier sections where it would break in a sentence and I'd have to connect the multiple pieces together. Here, I was able to follow it line by line. The series of love poems were so quirky and unique, and they hold "love" in an unusual way that I really adored. They are not sappy. Honestly, they're not even all that "romantic" at least not by traditional means. But I did connect with the unusual depictions shown and how even ugly things can have beauty when viewed with love.
The back half was perhaps the heaviest, with some memorial pieces of those who've died. Largely racial violence and police abuse and all the systemic bullshit we've been dealing with in United States for years and years and years. I don't really want to say I "enjoyed" those poems because of course the facts of them are shitty, but I appreciated the message. It was a ray of solidarity, expressed in a very elegant yet forceful way that puts to words feelings that, for me, are usually too messy to neatly express in words.
Overall, I'm quite glad I found this collection. It had a range of personal to collective, and of more traditional to more creative.
May 19, 2025
Thanks to NetGalley & Knopf, Pantheon, and Anchor for the ARC!
Martín Espada’s Jailbreak of Sparrows is a work that exists primarily as texture rather than narrative, depicting images with the unpredictable lucidity of memory—some mundanities are preserved with crystalline affection while important details are lost.
While reading, a single word repeatedly came to mind—“professional.” These poems are written with such polish that they lose dimension, and their universal verbosity makes them feel overly practiced yet under-edited. In my personal poetics, I think it should always by clear why a poem is a poem, and that just isn’t the case here, as the form’s fragmentation never amounts to a whole—a collage.
Personally, I think Jailbreak of Sparrows is at its best when it is at its most overtly political, such as in “The Critic’s Tongue Did Not Sparkle with the Diamond Stickpin of Wit” which interrogates conservatism that masquerades as intellectualism, or “He Could Sing, But He Couldn’t Fly,” which wrestles with immigration and documentation. Notably, these are much tighter poems than the ones surrounding them, and I wish the collection contained more of their ilk.
All in all, this was a bit of a disappointment, but I would encourage would-be readers to opt for the audiobook. The slack in Espada’s voice feels almost necessary to fully appreciate the meandering shuffle of these pieces, and the openness of his timbre gives each word a little more room.
Martín Espada’s Jailbreak of Sparrows is a work that exists primarily as texture rather than narrative, depicting images with the unpredictable lucidity of memory—some mundanities are preserved with crystalline affection while important details are lost.
While reading, a single word repeatedly came to mind—“professional.” These poems are written with such polish that they lose dimension, and their universal verbosity makes them feel overly practiced yet under-edited. In my personal poetics, I think it should always by clear why a poem is a poem, and that just isn’t the case here, as the form’s fragmentation never amounts to a whole—a collage.
Personally, I think Jailbreak of Sparrows is at its best when it is at its most overtly political, such as in “The Critic’s Tongue Did Not Sparkle with the Diamond Stickpin of Wit” which interrogates conservatism that masquerades as intellectualism, or “He Could Sing, But He Couldn’t Fly,” which wrestles with immigration and documentation. Notably, these are much tighter poems than the ones surrounding them, and I wish the collection contained more of their ilk.
All in all, this was a bit of a disappointment, but I would encourage would-be readers to opt for the audiobook. The slack in Espada’s voice feels almost necessary to fully appreciate the meandering shuffle of these pieces, and the openness of his timbre gives each word a little more room.
December 28, 2025
More like a 3 1/2. Would have been higher, but the third (of four) sections here feels wildly out of place — thematically, linguistically, emotionally. Clocking 100 pages as this does, there was still plenty of content for a full collection in the other three parts, without shoehorning what was clearly a bit of a playful mini-project into a work that is otherwise far thornier and weighted with powerful sociological survey. Regardless, peak Espada lands somewhere near peak poetry.
August 26, 2025
The City Wears a Coat to Bed
The white army of winter spreads across the city. Boilers and
radiators
die in their sleep, their skin cold to the touch in the morning. The
city
wears a coat to bed. The city watches the wraith of breath rise in
the kitchen.
The white army of winter spreads across the city. Boilers and
radiators
die in their sleep, their skin cold to the touch in the morning. The
city
wears a coat to bed. The city watches the wraith of breath rise in
the kitchen.
November 2, 2025
Espada was very charismatic at a reading I attended, his work is direct, sharp, and impactful
October 24, 2025
i would adore a love song from a disembodied head in a jar
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews