Boomerang / Bumerán: Poetry / Poesía (Raised Voices nº 1)

by Achy Obejas

A bilingual poetry collection from a Cuban-American writer-activist that explores themes of identity, sexuality, and belonging

A unique and inspiriting bilingual collection of lyrical poetry written in a bold, mostly gender-free English and Spanish that address immigration, displacement, love and activism.

The book is divided into 3 sections: First, poems addressing immigration and displacement; secondly, those addressing love, lost and found, and finally, verses focusing on action, on ways of addressing injustice and repairing the world. The volume will be both inspiration and support for readers living with marginalized identities and those who love and stand with them.

Genres: Poetry

155 pages, Kindle Edition

Published September 7, 2021

About the author

Achy Obejas is the award-winning author of Days of Awe, Memory Mambo and We Came all the Way from Cuba So You Could Dress Like This? Her poems, stories and essays have appeared in dozens of anthologies, including Akashic's Chicago Noir. A long time contributor to the Chicago Tribune, she was part of the 2001 investigative team that earned a Pulitzer Prize for the series, “Gateway to Gridlock.” Her articles have appeared in Vanity Fair, Village Voice, The Nation, Playboy, and MS, among others. Currently, she is a music contributor to the Washington Post and the Sor Juana Writer in Residence at DePaul University in Chicago. She was born in Havana

Reviews

[l · Rating 2 out of 5]

not related to my rating but:

"I realized I wanted to make the text as gender-free as reasonably possible [...] In this quest to wrestle with gender, there was also a compelling discovery: in some cases, gender very much matters. The story, the moment, the scene, or the sentiment needs to be explicitly gendered to make sense, to be true, because some things still happen to us precisely because of gender, especially for women."

that feeling when you're reading this absurd passage from a woman who has been writing lesbian fiction since the 1990s

[Cameron D. R. Eyestone · Rating 5 out of 5]

Thank you to Beacon for giving me a free copy of this book in a giveaway for review.
Boomerang is a very raw poetry and prose collection dealing with immigration and displacement, love and loss, and how to take action against and addressing injustice split into three separate sections.
I genuinely really enjoyed this book, especially the last section dealing with injustice. The last two pages were very powerful.
I especially love that this collection can be read in English read right side up, and in Spanish if you flip the book upside down. A beautiful touch that goes with the theme of the book perfectly.

[Vilma Diaz · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was an interesting read. The author did make a note of stating in the beginning that they wanted to make the text as gender free as possible. This isn't all that hard in English. The thing is, the same cannot be said for it in Spanish.

I was trying to read both the English and Spanish versions, but I really struggled with the Spanish. Spanish is my birth language, but I was born in the US, meaning the only times I really interact with it are when I speak with my parents or just happen to watch something in Spanish (which is pretty rare, maybe an hour or two at most per week).

So as I was reading it, my brain was very confused because I didn't know if it "sounded" off because of my somewhat tentative grasp on Spanish or because it was gender free and some things didn't make sense. It was an exercise in frustration, and I considered not finishing the book.

I ended up deciding to just read the English version. While a part of me feels like it was a cop out, I prefer to have at least finished the English version instead of abandoning it completely. I would like to go back and read the Spanish version someday, but am not really sure if I will.

Once I stopped reading the Spanish version, and about 95% of my frustration vanished, I quite enjoyed it. I'd never heard of this poet, and am curious to explore the rest of their works.

[gold cs · Rating 4 out of 5]

second book of the year with “boomerang” in the title. yeah, poets are obsessed with time, movement, repetition. I really like how proud Achy Obejas is of her use of repetition, like these are definitely songs. these poems rely on the sonic and are not all that mechanical at all. I think lots of contemporary poetry people are scared of repetition and rhyme, as if it’s too customary, when I actually think that’s all that we have, whether it’s smart enough sounding or not. a chant requires more power than a sentence. I was confused by the note on using “gender-free language” which is a weird goal I think, because gender is useful sometimes especially if you’re wielding it like a lesbian. but I do get the concern with the Spanish language or whatever. gender is at home in Euro-American languages, sorry, that’s where we are. The poem about a man in a wheelchair felt weird to me but I think that’s kind of maybe I hope what Obejas meant to do. we can only hope!

[Bessy]

English poems in this collection are very strong.
However, the attempt to write the translations in a “gender neutral” language, makes it almost impossible to read the neutralized text.
Even the lyrics of a famous tango are changed. !
My problem with this attempt is that because Spanish is my first language, and I love and respect it enormously, my brain kept making corrections as I read each line.
Not a good way to enjoy (o disfrutar de “le Poesie”)
I imagine the writers whose blurbs appear in the book probably read only the poems in English
I sincerely hope this doesn’t become yet another trend and another attempt to go off a precipice in search of political correctness

[Sharon · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting and unique. Also, a great way to brush up on my Spanish.

this was a goodreads giveaway

[Ron Frampton · Rating 5 out of 5]

A batch of poems that come back with sacred news of our condition

[Madelyn · Rating 3 out of 5]

“I have seen a land of regal elephants gathered in a circle, wailing and grieving our losses, all those unnamable and immeasurable losses, a constellation of bullet holes on the fortress walls and a sea of dirty sheets in the hospital laundry room waiting to be burned.”