My Nature is Hunger: New and Selected Poems, 1989 2004

by Luis J. Rodríguez

    Award-winning Latino author Luis J. Rodríguez stuns with My Nature is Hunger. The collection features 26 new poems that reflect Rodríguez’s increasingly global view, his hard-won spirituality, and his movement toward reconciliation with his family and his past, as well as selections from his previous books, Poems Across the Pavement, The Concrete River, and Trochemoche.

Genres: Poetry

160 pages, Paperback

First published September 1, 2005

About the author

Luis J. Rodríguez (b. 1954) is a poet, journalist, memoirist, and author of children’s books, short stories, and novels. His documentation of urban and Mexican immigrant life has made him one of the most prominent Chicano literary voices in the United States. Born in El Paso, Texas, to Mexican immigrant parents, Rodríguez grew up in Los Angeles, where in his teen years he joined a gang, lived on the streets, and became addicted to heroin. In his twenties, after turning his back on gang violence and drugs, Rodríguez began his career as a journalist and then award-winning poet, writing such books as the memoir Always Running (1993), and the poetry collections The Concrete River (1991), Poems Across the Pavement (1989), and Trochemoche (1998). He has also written the short story collection The Republic of East L.A. (2002). Rodríguez maintains an arts center, bookstore, and poetry press in L.A., where he continues writing and working to mediate gang violence.

Reviews

[Michelle Willms · Rating 5 out of 5]

My Nature is Hunger by Luis J. Rodriguez

The words in Luis J. Rodriguez’s collection are so eloquent, the language so vivid, that the images leap off the page forming full-fledged films in the reader’s mind. His voice is sometimes gritty, sometimes even harsh, reminding us that life isn’t always gentle. This is because Rodriguez understands diversity, first joining a gang at age eleven, before separating himself from gang activities in his twenties to pursue journalism.

Even at his most visceral, Rodriguez wrings truth beautifully from rough environments, or from hard situations. The poem, “Red Screams,” could be potentially cathartic to so many. It strummed the strings to my heart’s soul.

“Cinco de Mayo” should be required reading for anyone who ever celebrates the holiday. Rodriguez brings to life the pains of all forms of warfare, those fought on our streets, those fought on the battlefield, or those fought with personal demons as a result of other types of warfare.

Rodriguez most definitely has a way with words. He teaches us lessons, or brings our memories sharply back into focus; and he does this in a way that is thought-provoking, touching, and always beautiful.

[Duane · Rating 5 out of 5]

Rodriguez has long been one of my favorite poets, so getting this collection was a pleasure. This contained a selection of his collected works - including his hard to find: "Poems Across the Pavement."

If I had any complaint it is that I wanted more. More new poems. But the ones I did get, I am well satisfied with.

My new favorite poem of his though is from his first book. The poem is entitled "Rosalie has Candles." I have read it a few dozen times. Picking the book up and rereading the poem every few days.

These are poems you remember in your gut.

[Rose · Rating 5 out of 5]

Review to come. I have a new poet to add among my favorites after reading "My Nature is Hunger". This is a wonderful compilation of poetry from Luis Rodriguez - incredibly potent, attentive to detail, beautiful flow and imagery over the course of several of his works in one collection.

[Amanda · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved everything about this book. To me, everything was relatable. All the things I've seen growing up, feeling misplaced, his struggle was my struggle. Cannot explain how much this booked moved me.

[Eurydice Montpelier F. Waltz · Rating 2 out of 5]

It feels very unfortunate to rate this book as low as I have because Luis Rodriguez is an incredible poet and that really goes without saying. His poetic syntax is incredible well defined and every line feels important, every line is a brushstroke that paints the pictures he is trying to show us. But the unfortunate truth is that a lot these poems leave me feeling incredible uncomfortable with the author himself. The sexist ways he portrays women in these poems is so self-aggrandizing. Like he’s proud of himself for portraying women accurately, or in a way that serves to express the working man’s perspective full-scale. He does the same thing when he talks about his children. In one poem, he mentions getting into drunken fights and battering his wife with his children crying in the other room or trying to break it up—presumably trying to present himself as complex, because of course he knows how awful this is, but he was drunk, and poor, and women are so hard to handle, right? But there is never any remorse. There is no contrition.

To be honest, maybe there is later in the book, but I reached a breaking point at ‘Woman on the First Street Bridge.’ Which was so egregiously sexist that I genuinely couldn’t pick the book back up after that. In all of these poems, cemented by this one, his perspective is that women are at their most useful, their most spiritually poignant when naked or having sex with him.

And as for the poems about his children, comparing ‘Victory, Victoria, My Beautiful Whisper,’ which is about his daughter, to ‘to the police officer who refused to sit in the same room as my son because he’s a “gang banger”’ there is a gulf of a difference, in my eyes, between these shades of parenting he portrays. ‘Victory,’ from the perspective of his daughter is almost humiliating, highlighting his cruel behavior when she was a child & by the end still showing little but self-pity and useless self-awareness, no contrition. And perhaps if these poems were not already so personal, that could be forgiven. But why should he have any right to showcase his daughter’s shame and not his own? By that, I mean that he quite literally presents his terrible actions as though they were simply things SHE had to reckon with. He really does an amazing job at subverting his own responsibility. As for the poem about his son? There is fierce loyalty, fierce understanding, this experience bridges them together, rather than the ‘stone path of our distance’ that pissing in his daughter’s toy box and emotionally neglecting her seemed to cause between him and his daughter.

I know Luis J. Rodriguez is a very culturally important man and I can’t sit here and pretend there isn’t a high volume of value in so many of these poems, but they are just not for me. In fact, they have pretty much ticked every single box I personally reserve for things I do not enjoy in literature. Which I actually find kind of impressive.

[Vanessa · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good poems to take with me to juvenile hall. They love it.