The Death of a Migrant Worker

by Gil Arzola

Gil Arzola’s father was a migrant worker raised in Bustamante, Mexico, who crossed like so many others when he was fifteen. His mother was born and raised in Robstown, Texas, to a cobbler father and a mother who died when she was eleven. Together they found their way to Northwest Indiana and a migrant camp, working their way north in the back of trucks and old cars. One day they stopped. And stayed. The poems are drawn from Gil’s memory, not necessarily the most important days but the ordinary days where we spend most of our lives. They are about people like so many others who carve out lives without applause and hope to leave their children a better life. This poetry collection is a gift and monument of words to Gil’s parents. It is a way of saying “these people passed through this way, and here’s what they did.”

Genres: Poetry

31 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2021

About the author

Gil Arzola’s first book of poetry, Prayers of Little Consequence, was published in 2019 by Passager, who named him their Poet of the Year. His story “Losers Walk” was nominated for a Pushcart Prize in 2018, and other work has appeared in Dash, Palabra, Whetstone, The Tipton Review, The Elysian Review, Crosslimb, and Slab, among others.

Reviews

[Jimmy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Rattle chapbook prize winners are always great, including my own.

[Tom C. · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm loving this series more and more with each book, and I'm honored to have published a chapbook in the same series as a poet with Gil Arzola's considerable gifts. I love these nostalgic lines from "Childhood Homes":
"Over there--across the field you can count
one, two, maybe three trees I used to climb.
Walk there--
And you can ask each blade of grass on the way
to tell you my name."

And these powerfully felt lines from "Weather Report":
"There is no end to it, I want to say.
No pocket
deep enough. No
heart to hold it all."

My favorite poems overall are "My Mother's Love Story," "When We Were Poor and the Wind Blew," and "The Difference Between Me, A Rock, and a Tree."

Looking for something a little different than what literary insiders are serving up these days? Look no further than this book and others in the Rattle Chapbook Series.

[Sandra L L. · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love the day the mailman delivers the latest edition of “Rattle.” And this week he brought me a gentle chapbook prize-winning collection of poems so full of grief and gut that I simply sat in my car and read each one twice before going on to the next. Gil Arzola, you know how to spin your words.

[Jennifer deBie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Lovely, heartbreaking, hungry in places and built on the sharpness of brevity, Arzola's The Death of a Migrant Worker is exactly what you want from a chapbook with a title like that.

Look out especially for the throat catch that is "My Mother's Love Story", the passing time in "Childhood Homes", and the universe contained in "Questions".

[Brittany Mishra · Rating 4 out of 5]

A quiet collection of poems. Praise, death, recollection and thoughts. I enjoyed December Something: 1973. "The darkness is twisted/like broken wire/across her face."

[Mary Lee · Rating 4 out of 5]

31/31 #TheSealeyChallenge This book made me sit uncomfortably with my memories of the migrant children who were my classmates. Arzola writes beautiful and accessible poems.

[John Hanson · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love poetry I don't have to wrestle with. The author uses simple words and phrasing, simple metaphor and analogy, simple form and cadence, but these are anything but simple poems. Very readable and enjoyable.

[William Harrington · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent poetry that provides at view of life from a perspective not normally considered. It provides insight.

[Gerry Stefanson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Good read, heart felt, written with soul and love. Does poetry proud - thank you Rattle Press for delivering the goods.

[Alarie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Another masterpiece from the Rattle Chapbook Prize Series – Arzola’s poems are beautiful, quiet, and clear. While the topics are often serious and sad, as you’d expect, Arzola knows we listen more closely when someone whispers. His writing with its musical repetition and carefully chosen metaphors is the wind in our ear, telling us the world’s secrets. The language is compressed, clean, and cuts straight to the truth.

I found a quiet peace that reminded me at times of Buddhist, Asian, and native American poetry. For example, in “The Difference Between Me, a Rock, and a Tree,” the poet tells us that because a rock can’t move or speak, “it keeps still and listens.” “A tree had learned to be patient, /To give with the wind…./…to pay attention.” Yet we can tell Arzola has also learned those skills of the natural world.

I’d like to share just a few more favorite quotes. “Richard Smith” is about the foreman who oversees the migrant workers and hillbillies. In the morning, he greets them with a nod to mean that it’s time to get to work, turns around and walks to the truck:

"....He didn’t have to say it or look back to see if we’d moved.
Every morning we moved. Always we moved.
Grabbing dented lunchboxes and wrinkled paper bags
like they were life preservers, as if we believed we could be saved.
We began yanking at the day then, pulling quitting time toward us like
a tangled rope…"

“A Note to Thomas Wolfe” begins

"It turns out that you can go home again.
And once home there will be
things that will poke at your memory.
Doors will open …
harder than you remember…."

[Timons Esaias · Rating 4 out of 5]

The first and last poems ("The Death of a Migrant Worker" and "The Raking of Leaves") are the strongest in this chapbook, and they also provide a narrative arc. The first is about the death of the narrator's father, the last is the narrator preparing for death. Along the way we have several poems about the death of the mother.

It's a bit of a grim collection.

"At the Grave of Nancy Hanks" did not do what I thought it would, from the title, and I like that. There's an "A Note to Thomas Wolfe" that irritated me, because it is a note about a title and not the book, and just echoes Wolfe's point while pretending to correct him. Grrr.

These are strong pieces. Recommended.

[Andrea Huelsenbeck · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Death of a Migrant Worker was one of the Rattle Foundation Chapbook Contest winners from 2021. I always read the winning chapbooks (and I always wish I was one of the winners).
The Death of a Migrant Worker is a hard book to read, yet it’s important to read, especially for readers who have never had to tackle hardship, loss, poverty, and hopelessness on the scale of these poems and the people whose lives they describe. The poems take various forms, all unrhymed, all sad. If you’d like to read about the plight of migrant families, the book is only $6, and available at Rattle.com.

[Sher · Rating 5 out of 5]

A powerful collection of poems about life and death of migrant working families. Simple -- unforgettable images. A father, a mother, home, poverty, simplicity, food, resilience, family --Although I have little connection with this life history-- I felt great resonance reading these poems. Highly recommended.

[Leonard · Rating 5 out of 5]

A valuable chapbook of heart felt poems by a keen observer of life's experiences and the world around him.

[Sheila Bender · Rating 5 out of 5]

Reading Arzola's poetry is a relatable and moving experience that engages and engages the reader and pulls at the reader's heart with its lyricism.

[Porsha Monique Allen · Rating 4 out of 5]

This collection is both tender & gut-wrenching.