Poems from the Rio Grande (Chicana and Chicano Visions of the Américas Series)

Chicana & Chicano Visions of the Américas

by Rudolfo Anaya, Robert Con Davis-Undiano (Foreword)

Readers of Rudolfo Anaya’s fiction know the lyricism of his prose, but most do not know him as a poet. In this, his first collection of poetry, Anaya presents twenty-eight of his best poems, most of which have never before been published. Featuring works written in English and Spanish over the course of three decades, Poems from the Río Grande offers readers a full body of work showcasing Anaya’s literary and poetic imagination.

Although the poems gathered here take a variety of forms—haiku, elegy, epic—all are imbued with the same lyrical and satirical styles that underlie Anaya’s fiction. Together they make a fascinating complement to the novels, stories, and plays for which he is well known. In verse, Anaya explores every aspect of Chicano identity, beginning with memories of his childhood in a small New Mexico village and ending with mature reflections on being a Chicano who considers himself connected to all peoples. The collection articulates the themes at the heart of all Anaya’s work: nostalgia for the landscape and customs of his boyhood in rural New Mexico, a deep connection to the Río Grande, the politics of Chicanismo and satire aimed at it, and the use of myth and history as metaphor.

Anaya also illustrates his familiarity with world traditions of poetry, invoking Walt Whitman, Homer, and the Bible. The poem to Isis that concludes the collection honors Anaya’s wife, Patricia, and reflects his increasing identification with spiritual traditions across the globe.

Both profeta and vato, seer and homeboy, Anaya as author is a citizen of the world. Poems from the Río Grande offers readers a glimpse into his development as a poet and as one of the most celebrated Chicano authors of our time.

Genres: Poetry

128 pages, Paperback

First published August 27, 2015

About the author

Rudolfo Anaya lives and breathes the landscape of the Southwest. It is a powerful force, full of magic and myth, integral to his writings. Anaya, however, is a native Hispanic fascinated by cultural crossings unique to the Southwest, a combination of oldSpain and New Spain, of Mexico with Mesoamerica and the anglicizing forces of the twentieth century. Rudolfo Anaya is widely acclaimed as the founder of modern Chicano literature. According to the New York Times, he is the most widely read author in Hispanic communities, and sales of his classic Bless Me, Ultima (1972) have surpassed 360,000, despite the fact that none of his books have been published originally by New York publishing houses. His works are standard texts in Chicano studies and literature courses around the world, and he has done more than perhaps any other single person to promote publication of books by Hispanic authors in this country. With the publication of his novel, Albuquerque (1992),Newsweek has proclaimed him a front-runner in "what is better called not the new multicultural writing, but the new American writing." His most recent volume, published in 1995, is Zia Summer.

"I've always used the technique of the cuento. I am an oral storyteller, but now I do it on the printed page. I think if we were very wise we would use that same tradition in video cassettes, in movies, and on radio."

from
http://www.unm.edu/~wrtgsw/anaya.html
and
http://www.gale.cengage.com/free_reso...

Reviews

[Casey]

I picked up this book at the library almost at random and was very pleased. Anaya’s poems shine with his exuberance of life as he moves the reader through his culture and background from his boyhood in Chicano New Mexico.

I loved the way he weaves his tales in English and Spanish, and sometimes Nahuatl, the language of the Aztecs, such as Quetzalcoatl and other Aztec gods. Then he incorporates the Egyptian myths of Isis and Osiris, who, strangely, visit New Mexico. Somehow, he pulls it all together into his ancestral past when he travels to Barcelona.

And he throws in the lore of the chupacabra, which has frightened generations of Chicano children.

Recommended!

[Dean Burrier Sanchis]

Rudolfo Anaya, better than anyone I have read, brought to life el llano, the great Southwest, La tierra encantada and Aztlan. His poetry, as his prose, is full of folk history and love for mother nature.

[World Literature Today]

"Poems from the Río Grande is the first collection of poems by a revered Chicano writer who writes for la gente (the people) but who has also been acclaimed by literary critics around the world for his lyrical prose. In the book’s preface (“Poetry as ritual”), Anaya comments on his poetics and lifelong artistic attempts to transport himself to an Absolute from his everyday world, taking him—as a Nuevomexicano—to a heritage woven with threads from different world cultures (“Poetry unites. Poetry connects,” Anaya affirms). Words such as “sacred,” “soul,” and “the Absolute” appear in Anaya’s preface and poems as tacit challenges for the reader to rethink and reconceptualize—from one’s secularized and unbelieving vantage point—the possibilities and experiences latent in a language of transcendence we have all but forgotten." - Roberto Cantú

This book was reviewed in the May/August 2016 issue of World Literature Today magazine. Read the full review by visiting our website:

http://www.worldliteraturetoday.org/2...

[Leonard]

I really liked these poems although they more "wordy" than the writings of many poets. I like that the author is free to use English and Spanish in his writing. I like the historical focus of some and the fact that others are like liturgies, and some could even be sung.