Piñata Theory

by Alan Chazaro

Cante Jundo, or “Deep Song,” is what Garcia Lorca called poetry attached to the rhythms and waves of a continent, its people, its waters, its history. In Alan Chazaro’s Piñata Theory, those resonances echo across the field “between the countries of your body,” the shared stories of cousin-cultures stretching across manmade boundaries. “I’ve become a borderland of tongues,” writes Chazaro, “a mezcla of eyes.” Here is the piñata, unbroken, containing, holding together all the promise of youth and imagination. When it spills, it spills lavishly and generously its treasures.
—D A Powell

The great American philosopher Jay Z once said, “You can’t heal/what you don’t reveal.” Such is the ethos of this debut collection. Pugilistic, unflinchingly honest, and damn right gorgeous, Piñata Theory no se raja in decirnos how broken we are, how broken we’ve been. Alan takes the hyphen in Mexican-American, this unruly papier-mache we’ve inherited, and clothes the hollow of us. So before leafing this book, dear reader, take a breath—for your sake, for those who still can’t breathe. Stomach his hard-hitting truth, because “We were made for beatdowns.” This some strong shit, as blunt as a spliffed Swisher, as the dusty 2×4’s we’d wield at dangling dulce. Whenever you ready, step inside this circle of homies. We’re cheering on our Yay Area champ as he plants both feet in this poetry world. It’s his turn. And as he swings for our freedom, sing like we did as kids, “Dale dale dale, no pierdas el tino.”
—Antonio López

We don’t get to witness a root as it reaches out and absorbs from all around itself. But Piñata Theory by Alan Chazaro is evidence of this Mexican-American navigation—it is the bud and the strange blossom that doesn’t resist itself like Xicanos sometimes do. And in this way, it is like the serious ache a family joke leaves. It’s the men watching other men cry, lost gold teeth and the person that misses it, the thoughts loose like dogs on the street and how in their wildness, we must honor them. These poems reverb under the skin but not necessarily in the colonized body. The speaker in this collection knows better than to make their body fully responsible for the world. And yet, they know where they participate. They don’t “live with dust in [their] eyes,” or with unaccounted admiration for life. Piñata Theory is a record of layer, and speaks of us in a humor that is pure pocho-dimensional. Its truth is a deep wound and the “fuck it” that follows. And still, each poem seems to be written in a special wonder that gathers itself from many places inside the speaker’s one body, one root.
—Sara Borjas

Genres: Poetry

86 pages, Paperback

Published September 1, 2020

Reviews

[Bree Dawn · Rating 2 out of 5]

There were a few lines that I enjoyed, but for the most part, it really wasn’t a poetry collection that I particularly liked. It was too vulgar, too frequently, for my taste.

[Jesus Guzman · Rating 5 out of 5]

I saw a lot of myself in this book. Chazaro took moments from my childhood like the Chavez vs. de la Hoya fight that I remember vividly and refreshed it in a way I hadn't thought about in years. I remember my family, along with several other Mexican families, all huddled up together in a small trailer on a dairy farm up here in Petaluma (Sonoma County); it smelled like an armpit with packs of Budweiser and grown men groaning about Chavez' defeat. But for me, as a kid, Oscar was awesome because I identified with him more closely. I was sad years later when he lost to Trinidad, which was an epic fight itself. I mentioned de la Hoya's name to my Dad the other day, and he muttered something about him being a miserable bastard - the disdain hasn't wavered 25 years later!

I don't find myself reading poetry very often. It's radically different to read pages of poetry and see my own experiences, the contradiction, and the range of those experiences - so colorfully painted on the page. It's not often I see Andre Nickatina and Selena mentioned in the same book; trips to Mexico and feeling like the American cousin that visits, and despite being born in Mexico, and having been raised here, I was always different in some ways from them. My mom was always praying for me. I think that's what helped keep me out of trouble sometimes even when I went looking for it. Like Maestro Hector Sanchez often says, "I'm the product of many prayers." This book felt dedicated to every Mexican/Latinx kid that grew up in the Bay Area, but with so much here for a larger audience curious about our lived experiences.

[Michael Akuchie · Rating 5 out of 5]

"It’s heavier
than you think,
to hold and re-lease thunder."
— Self-Portrait as American

Alan Chazaro, author of the overwhelmingly bright debut full-length poetry collection "Piñata Theory", cranks up the crossfade feature, taking us through the short distance between hip-hop/rap and poetry. The achievements of this body of work are a legion—each one lyrical as a poem you'd read to the missus or just to yourself. Chazaro incorporates the much-loved concept of familia with great tact within the span of this collection.

"I want to remix the wrongs and make a mixtape
of imperfection."
— A Millenial walks into a Bar and Says:

Personally, I like to think of this work as a perfect equivalent to superhuman rapper Jermaine Cole's 2014 album "24 Forest Hills Drive" or Kendrick Lamar's timeless "good kid, m. A. A. d city". Pinata Theory is the poetry book of place—The Bay Area, of a rich heritage, of a history swollen with the good and unpleasant things, of a poet that has made major art out from his community.

I strongly recommend the purchase of this much relevant project. In here, you find poetry woven together with culture, and Chazaro, going by this work, is an elegant weaver.

"Remind me: how does one’s music
become another’s wreckage?"
— Speech Cantos

[Isaac Pickell · Rating 5 out of 5]

Chazaro’s debut is a brilliant collection of everyday things that are sometimes ugly, sometimes inspiring, often the kinds of things that are Not Worthy of Poetry but always, even insistently, rendered with beauty and care. It’s these tender smallnesses, like “Google Searching Mexico” or a missing tooth, that give Piñata Theory the power of cultural commentary it so clearly wields.

This poet, who “grows violins inside his stomach,” doesn’t set out to tell us the way of the world, but can’t seem to help it.

[Viviana · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you've ever stuggled with the duality of being Latino in the United States, this is the collection for you. Chazaro speaks on love, language, family, and friends, as well as the two versions of yourself required to succeed in any of these aspects. I actually met him near the end of 2020 and he puts his entire soul on the page. Who you read is who he is, so trust that his experience will make you feel less alone.

[Nancy · Rating 4 out of 5]

These poems let me be in Mexico and California, and with boys and fathers. Thank you.
Loved the form experiments and all the language aliveness.

[Glassworks Magazine · Rating 5 out of 5]

Reviewed by Thomas LaPorte on www.rowanglassworks.org.

Piñata Theory by Alan Chazaro is a collection of poetry, a collection of memory, a collection of what it was and is like to be a Mexican-American.

Chazaro has moments of sincere examination—“Lucha Libre, in Two and ½ Parts,” a poem which is split into two and a half parts, is an example in which he explores how he may have turned out had he been raised in Mexico instead of the United States. He writes:

“Mexican
me might’ve been more
listo than American
me,
might’ve loved mas facil than American
me.”

For the non-Spanish speakers, what Chazaro is saying is: Mexican me might’ve been more ready than American me, might’ve loved more easily than American me.

In this we learn the epicenter, the foundation, for most of the poems is a search for identity. Chazaro thinks: What if I stayed? What if I were raised in Mexico? Who would I have been? These are valid questions for anyone raised outside of their home country.

As a person who was born in a foreign country but raised in the US, I too think about this often. Who would I be if I was raised in a different country? Hopefully, the reader will also wonder who else they could have been, were they born somewhere else.

In this same poem, Chazaro grapples even further in a breathtaking revelation;

“I was born in Redwood City, but my mom tells me I was born
in México. When I’m older, she shows me
a forged birth certificate with my Mexican
identity: Alan Perez Chazaro. In case of emergency,”

This situation is so fascinating; a just in case being a Mexican birth certificate. It is such an unusual detail, why would his mother think he may need it? It is only one of the many interesting elements which make up Piñata Theory.

Chazaro is also one to play with form—multiple poems are broken into sections, and it works well to tell a story and make a point. And it is done in an effective way. Read “Lucha Libre, in Two and ½ Parts,” or “Clinica Xalapa / Visiting Hours,” or the title piece, “Piñata Theory,” for a zesty multiple-part poem. Each of the poems tells Chazaro’s personal story; the reader may find it mirrors their life story as well.

Chazaro has split the collection into sections—“Body,” “Break,” and “Gather”—strategically categorizing everything. He tactically crafts line breaks, like in “Burning Etcetera”:

“For as far as I could drink
there were barely-built
things and wargrounds where revolution
aries foxholed themselves
the way we must foxhole our desires
at night.”

The way the lines are broken puts emphasis on “things” and “wargrounds,” as well as the “aries foxholed.” This creates a powerful image; this is only a small hors d'oeuvre of great line breaks which can be found throughout the collection.

This collection contains poems which will resonate in the reader’s mind; poems like “A Millennial Walks into a Bar and Says:,” “Ode to Kendrick Lamar,” “Before Being Deported,” and “Notes on Gentrification” are about identity and humanity and how they have affected Alan Chazaro, and whether you were born in the US or elsewhere, they are well worth the read.