Talk Shows

by Mónica de la Torre

Poetry. Latino/Latina Studies. TALK SHOWS is accomplished translator Monica de la Torre's first book of original poetry in English. "De la Torre's poetry deconstructs sets of beliefs about what it means to be a multi-dimensional subject and turns markers of gender and race on their so-called ears. Identity and gender politics are folded neatly into smart disses and observations on the specifics of cultural play and gaff, making this a book to be reckoned with"--Lee Ann Brown.

Genres: Poetry

80 pages, Paperback

First published February 1, 2007

About the author

Mónica de la Torre is co-author of the book Appendices, Illustrations & Notes (Smart Art Press) with artist Terence Gower, and co-editor, with Michael Wiegers, of Reversible Monuments: Contemporary Mexican Poetry (Copper Canyon Press). She edited and translated the volume Poems by Gerardo Deniz, published by Lost Roads and Taller Ditoria, and has translated numerous other Spanish-language poets. Born and raised in Mexico City, she moved to New York in 1993. She has been the poetry editor of The Brooklyn Rail since 2001 and is pursuing a PhD in Spanish Literature at Columbia University. Her work has appeared in journals including Art on Paper, BOMB, Bombay Gin, Boston Review, Chain, Circumference, Fence, Mandorla, Review: Latin American Literature and Arts, and Twentysix. Talk Shows is her first book of original poetry in English.

Reviews

[Mark · Rating 3 out of 5]

Humor is a delicate thing to balance, especially in an art form like poetry (rather than in standup comedy or more straightforward jokes). Add to this the difficulty of making jokes in another language, and you're almost certainly doomed. So much of what makes things funny is an unexpectedness; only sometimes is that possible through naivate with a language. The whole time, I was trying to parse if de la Torre is actually familiar with English, or if she's primarily posing as if she is familiar. Either she has an impressive vocabulary and that's just how she writes, or more likely she writes this way because this is what's expected of contemporary poetry, that machine gun thesaurus and pop-culture roll-call (of which she does mercifully little of the latter).

This is not to say you cannot be funny in poetry; two great examples are Paul Klee's poetry and Archy and Mehitabel by Don Marquis. The first was achieved by a true beginner's approach to poetry combined with a once-in-a-generation childlike disposition never soured by contempt. The second was achieved by clever characters who spoke in a unique tone of voice about timeless truths. de la Torre's first section ("How-Tos") fell flat because it had neither of those, instead attempting campy wordplay and too many pop-culture references. The first is yawn-inducing to native English speakers, and the latter badly dates the text without adding much. I was very tempted to quit the book by the end of this section, but I'm glad I read on to the more "serious" remainder.

In the second section ("Self and Society"), we are introduced to some fascinating characters. As I saw by looking at my other review of de la Torre's earlier English poetry, I see I also found her characters interesting then as well. Her text flows best when she writes about people and micro-narratives, so it's almost surprising she sticks to poetry rather than fiction. Poetry of course does allow for the randomness and brevity found here, so maybe they'd only suffer if in slightly longer, more prosaic forms. In addition to her Neruda-esque mini-narratives, she also displayed some excellent control of the line, as in the first section of "Driven by a Strange Desire:"

I. Before breakfast

When the sun turns gray and I become tired
of looking at your multicolored shoes

I will give you balloons for all the holes
we speak too much to fill. Who believes

in air, nowadays? Or do you prefer tea
with the dried fruit I will have to throw out

the window of your room? Because I want
this to stop I want this to stop I want this


Her command of line endings and enjambment multiplies the interpretive possibilities, and it shines much more brightly than her "clever" wordplay found in other places. For example, the longest poem, "Texas," is an Abecedarian exercise in sound-play, one which uses the alphabet (albeit out of order) to incite alliterative bookends for each "letter." Fortunately, her mini-narratives that start each "letter" are so convincing that I didn't mind how forced the alliterative exercise became. This form is a particularly tricky one, because it often evokes a groan when the reader realizes what's happening (and the eye immediately wanders down to x, y, and z, to see how they handle that car accident at the end). de la Torre's re-ordering of the letters freshened things up, but the first-letter-alliteration blunted what could have been an excellent poem. Perhaps my favorite entry in "Texas" was for the letter "g:"

17. Giving she found more to give, she gave so much and so joyfully that people surrounded her not because they wanted what she gave but because they wanted to see her crumble, break apart, become rude, have an outburst of anger for those times when she couldn't not give.


Other notable poems, such as "Bite its Heart Until it Learns" started off with a botched attempt at humor "One doesn't know a thing about what poets, the blind, hookers, / call 'mystery.' Nada. One can't say anything." But it manages to transcend this witticism to reach some beautiful mental imagery, such as "Look at my hands: transparent like light bulbs. / That ray of light moving toward the bottom of the water." One of the highest compliments I can pay an author is when they genuinely spark ideas and other tangents in me while I read, and I had plenty of those near the middle of the collection.

Possibly the best poem was one titled "On Translation," whose first line floored me: "Not to search for meaning, but to reenact a gesture, an intent." I am not multilingual enough to translate well, so I'm glad de la Torre was able to write elegantly about the experience. It's such an intimate yet messy thing... like sex? I guess? There's a massive amount of trust required, and there's always some unaccountable rough corners which can't carry over. It might be worth wondering what happens to these, how many a translator carries around with them, knowing they skimmed a little off the top before handing us the glass. I would have loved to see more poems musing on this and other experiences unique to de la Torre, instead of the constant attempts at humor. As I've mentioned elsewhere, humor often is our go-to postmodern defense mechanism. It's what we use to keep serious topics at bay, or to season them so we can swallow them. I want to read some of her more mature work to see if she's progressed past that, since I think her poetics have a lot of unrealized promise.

The final section was somewhat a return to (bad-taste) form, with some poems about golf and other random topics. The humor wasn't left out to rot like in the first section, and they were protected a bit better by a skein of narrative and a better, less-kitchy voice, but it was still there. But maybe that's just who de la Torre is: maybe she's just kinda corny? Does that make her a bad writer? I feel like Billy Collins might be the same way, since he's won every award, but all I can remember of his poetry are his attempts at humor. And maybe I missed some of the best jokes due to my monolingualism. I did make an interesting observation about halfway through the book when I noticed that larger words (such as "claustrofilica") were easier for me to read than smaller words (which, being the most spoken, remain the oldest and most unique to most languages). Strangely, the simplest parts of languages (especially the Romance languages) remain the most opaque to me, while the most specialized are the most accessible to me (I once read an entire wikipedia page in French about an author because I could guess cognates). This of course presupposed some sort of specialization in your own native language, which you can then transfer over. I'm not convinced it was translation, however, as there was little art or artistry in my reading.

[Douglas · Rating 4 out of 5]

See the full review here:

http://barrelhousemag.com/growler/Rev...

[Laura Aranda · Rating 5 out of 5]

For such a short collection, each poem has a very different feel and style. Enjoyable front to back. Loved her little commentaries at the end!