PASSIONATE HISPANIC
POETRY
A lesson in cultural diversity
A Collection of Hispanic Poetry
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The following is a growing collection of
poetry that reflects both the passion,
and experiences of Latinos in America.
There is brief biographical information
on each of the poets offered. This
collection is a work in progress, and all
contributions are welcome, whether it is
something you have found, or
something you have personally
created. Please submit any new
material to Ms. Sabo for consideration.
Poetry is more than you have been taught!
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“We don't read and write poetry because it's
cute. We read and write poetry because we
are members of the human race. And the
human race is filled with passion. So medicine,
law, business, engineering... these are noble
pursuits and necessary to sustain life. But
poetry, beauty, romance, love... these are
what we stay alive for.”
“When you read, don't just consider what the
author thinks, consider what you think.”
La Sociedad de los Poetas Muertos
The following CCSD Standards will be covered in this
lesson:
Prepare to
organize
Cornell notes
for the day’s
lesson:
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RL.11-12.1
Cite strong and thorough textual evidence to support
analysis of what the text says explicitly as well as
inferences drawn from the text, including
determining where the text leaves matters uncertain.
NV 3.12.5
Evaluate the use and purpose of imagery, figurative
language, and sound devices; analyze the author’s
use of language and/or syntax.
NV 3.12.7
Analyze the influence of historical events and culture
on an author’s work.
Themes often found in Hispanic Poetry:
Family
Religious
Faith
Passionate
Love
Dual Identity
History of Mexican Immigrants to America:
6
Chart Title
5
4
3
2
1
0
1960-1980
1990-2000
Series 1
2010-
Series 2
Series 3
??
Historical Context
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When did the Hispanic community’s quest for
justice begin? Their activism actually predates
the 1960s. In the 1940s and ’50s, for example,
Hispanics won two major legal victories. The
first—Mendez v. Westminster Supreme Court—
was a 1947 case that prohibited segregating
Latino schoolchildren from white children. It
proved to be an important predecessor to
Brown v. Board of Education, in which the U.S.
Supreme Court determined that a “separate but
equal” policy in schools violated the
Constitution. In 1954, the same year Brown
appeared before the Supreme Court, Hispanics
achieved another legal feat in Hernandez v.
Texas. In this case, the Supreme Court ruled that
the Fourteenth Amendment guaranteed equal
protection to all racial groups, not just blacks
and whites.
In the 1960s and '70s, Hispanics not only
pressed for equal rights, they began to question
the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo. This 1848
agreement ended the Mexican-American War
and resulted in America acquiring territory from
Mexico that currently comprises the
Southwestern U. S. During the Civil Rights Era,
Chicano radicals began to demand that the
land be given to Mexican Americans, as they
believed it constituted their ancestral homeland,
also known as Aztlán .They argued the U.S.’s
annexing of Mexican land in the 1800s was
illegal.
Duality by Herman Sillas’ Art and Activism
Jimmy Santiago-Baca
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Jimmy Santiago Baca was born in Santa
Fe County, New Mexico, in 1952.
Abandoned by his parents at the age of
two, he lived with one of his grandmothers
for several years before being placed in
an orphanage. He wound up living on the
streets, and at the age of twenty-one he
was convicted on charges of drug
possession and incarcerated. He served six
and a half years in prison, three of them in
isolation, and having expressed a desire
to go to school (the guards considered this
dangerous), he was for a time put in the
same area of the prison with the inmates
on death row before he was released.
Martin & Meditations on the South Valley
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IV
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Send me news Rafa
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of the pack dogs sleeping
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in wrecked cars in empty yards,
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or los veteranos
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dreaming in their whiskey bottles
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on porches
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of the past, full of glory and fear.
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The black smell of wet earth
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seeps into old leaning adobes,
and prowls like a black panther through
open windows.
Austere-faced hombres
hoeing their jadines
de chile y maiz in the morning,
crush beer cans and stuff them in gunny sacks
and pedal on rusty bicycles
in the afternoon to the recycling scale,
and at Coco’s chante
at dusk tecatos se juntan,
la cocina jammed like the stick exchange
lobby,
a los vatos raise their fingers
indicating cuanto quieren.
There is so much I miss Rafa,
so send me news.
XVII
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I love the wind
when it blows through my barrio.
It hisses its snake love
down calles de polvo,
and cracks egg-shell skins
of abandoned homes.
Stray dogs find shelter
along the river,
where great cottonwoods rattle
like old covered wagons,
stuck in stagnant waterholes.
Days when the wind blows
full of sand and grit,
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men and women make decisions
that change their whole lives.
Windy days in the barrio
give birth to divorce papers
and squalling separation. The wind
tells us
what others refuse to tell us,
informing men and women of a
secret,
that they move away to hide from.
IX
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Eddie blew his head off
playing chicken
with his brother, Para proof
he was man,
he blew his head off.
Don’t toll the bell brother,
‘cuz he was not religious.
The gray donkey he liked to talk to
at Dead Man’s Corner
grazes sadly. Eddie’s gone, its black-lashed dark
eyes
mourn. His tio Manuel shatters a bottle
of La Copita wine against the adobe wall
where he and his compass drink every afternoon,
and Manuel weeps for Eddie.
“He was the kid
without a coat
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During the winter, ‘Member he stole
Those gloves? Nice gloves.
gave ‘em to me ese.”
Blew his head off.
The explosion of the gun
was the golden flash of his voice
telling us no more, no more, no more.
His last bloody words
water the dried weeds
where his jefa threw the stucco fragments
out. Sparrows peck his brains outside
by fence posts.
He
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Flaco said, “Don’t give him no eulogy!
was for brothers and sisters
struggle. You know I saw him
court one day, when they handcuffed
older brother to take his brother
prison, you know Eddie jumped the
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benches, and grabbed his brother’s
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handcuffs, yelling, don’t take my brother
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he is not a bad man!”
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Everybody in Southside knew Eddie,
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little Eddie, bad little Eddie.
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He treated everybody with respect and honor.
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With black-board classroom attention
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he saw injustice, hanging out en las calles,
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sunrise ‘til sunset, with the bros and sisters.
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Don’t ring the bell, brother.
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Let it lie dead.
He
in
in
his
to
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Let the heavy metal rust.
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Let the rope fray and swing mutely
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in the afternoon dust and wind.
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How many times they beat you Eddie?
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How many police clubs
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are smeared with your blood,
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Switch blade en bolsa,
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manos de peidra,
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ne la linea con sus carnales,
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to absorb the tire-jack beating from other locotes,
billy-club beatings de la jura-
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your blood Eddie spotted
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sidewalks,
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smeared shovel handles,
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coated knife blades
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blurred your eyes and painted your body
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in a tribal-barrio dance
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to set yourself free,
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to know what was beyond the boundaries
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you were born into.
from Healing Earthquakes: Poems by Santiago-Baca
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A lover must liberate his lover, free her of lies to be
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entirely
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honest,
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a lover’s heart must be a page-turner book filled with
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familiar
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of
trust, dreams,
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a lover’s mouth must fit her mouth like two fingerprints
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perfectly
matched
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in a crime of obsession for each other.
Two
lovers bring the story to life
other’s hearts,
lovers
fly over different
cultures,
brooding days,
and the living of those two stories lifts the two
into
heights where only eagles fly,
when she is on stage and
keeps him under her
wings…
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and later when she is talking to someone, she says,Oh
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yes, my love
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even
dancing
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that resides in each
fly over dark and
fly both of them,
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feelings
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fly over different-colored skin,
she
or my husband, or my sweetness, in referring to
the other half of
her heart…
Pablo Neruda
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A Chilean writer considered one of
the most influential poets of the 20th
century.. Chilean poet diplomat and
politician; Nobel Prize for Literature
1971. Neruda became known as a
poet while still a teenager. He wrote
in a variety of styles including
surrealist poems, historical epics,
overtly political manifestos, a prose
autobiography, and eroticallycharged love poems such as the ones
in his 1924 collection Twenty Love
Poems and a Song of Despair. He
often wrote in green ink, which was
his personal symbol for desire and
hope.
Sonetos de Amor
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Sonnet 17
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Soneto 17
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I do not love you as if you were salt-rose or topaz,
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No te como si fueras rosa de sal, topacio
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or the arrow of carnations the fire shoots off.
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o fleche de claveles que propagan el fuego:
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I love you as certain dark things are to be loved,
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te amo como se aman ciertas cosas oscuras,
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in secret, between the shadow and the soul.
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secretamente, entre la sombra y el alma.
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I love you as the plant that never blooms
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Te amo como el planta que no florece y lleva
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but carries in itself the light of hidden flower
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dentro de si, escondida, la luz aquellas flores,
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thanks to your love a certain solid fragrance,
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y gracias a tu amor vive oscuro en mi cuerpo
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risen from the earth, lives darkly in my body.
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el apretado aroma que ascendio de la tierra.
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I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where.
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Te amo sin saber como, ni cuando, ni de donde,
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I love you straightforwardly, without complexities or pride;
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te amo directamente sin problemas ni orgullo:
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so I love you because I know no other way
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asi te amo porque no se amar de otra manera.
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than this: where I does not exist, nor you,
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sino asi de este modo en que no soy ni eres,
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so close that your hand on my chest is my hand,
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tan cerca que tu mano sobre mi pecho es mia,
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so close that your eyes close as I fall asleep.
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tan cerca que se cierran tus ojos con mi sueno.
Sonnet LXXXI
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And now you’re mine. Rest with your dream in my
dream.
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Soneto LXXXI
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Y a eres mia. Reposa con tu sueno en mi sueno,
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Love and pain and work should all sleep, now.
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Amor, dolor, trabajos, deben dormer ahora.
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The night turns on its invisible wheels,
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Gira la noche sobre sus invisibles ruedas
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and you are pure beside me as a sleeping amber.
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y junto a mi eres pura como el ambar dormido.
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No one else, Love, will sleep in my dreams. You will go,
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Ninguna mas, amor, dormira con mis suenos.
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we will go together, over the waters of time.
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Iras, iremos juntos por las aguas del tiempo.
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No one else will travel through the shadows with me,
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Ninguna viajara por la sombra cinmigo,
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only you, evergreen, ever sun, ever moon.
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solo tu, siempreviva, siempre sol, siempre luna.
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Your hands have already opened their delicate fists
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Ya tus manos abrieron los punos delicados,
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and let their soft drifting signs drop away;
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y dejaren caer suaves signos sin rumbo,
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your eyes closed like two gray wings, and I move
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tus ojos se cerraron como dos alas grises,
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after following the folding water you carry, that carries
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mientras yo sigo el agua que llevas y me lleva:
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la noche, el mundo, el viento devanan su destino,
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y ya no soy sin ti sino solo tu sueno.
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one away. The night, the world, the wind spin out their
destiny,
Without you, I am your dream, only that, and that is all.
Sandra Cisneros:
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Sandra Cisneros (born
December 20, 1954 in
Chicago) is a United States
author and poet best known
for her novel The House on
Mango Street. She is also the
author of Caramelo, published
by Knopf in 2002. Much of
her writing is influenced by her
Mexican-American heritage.
Cloud by: Sandra Cisneros
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If you are a poet, you will see clearly that there is a cloud
floating in this sheet of paper.
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-Thich Nhat Hanh
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Before you became a cloud, you were an ocean, roiled and
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murmuring like a mouth. You were the shadows of a cloud
cross-
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ing over a field of tulips . You were the tears of a man who
cried
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into a plaid handkerchief. You were the sky without a hat.
Your
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heart puffed and flowered like sheets drying on a line.
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And when you were a tree, you listened to the trees and the
tree
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things trees told you. You were the wind in the wheels of a
red
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bicycle. You were the spidery Mariatattooed on the hairless
arm
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of a boy in dowtown Houston. You were the rain rolling off
the
waxy leaves of a magnolia tree. A lock of straw-colored
hair
wedged between the mottled pages of a Victor Hugo novel.
A
crescent of soap. A spider the color of a fingernail. The
black nets
beneath the sea of olive trees. A skein of blue wool. A tea
saucer
wrapped in newspaper . An empty cracker tin. A bowl of
blueberries in heavy cream. White wine in a green-stemmed glass
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And when you opened your wings to wind, across the
punchedtin sky above a prison courtyard, those condemned to death
and
those condemned to life watched
white
cloud glides.
how smooth and sweet a
Rodolfo "Corky" Gonzales
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Rodolfo "Corky" Gonzáles (June 30,
1928 – April 12, 2005) was a
Mexican American boxer, poet, and
political activist. He convened the
first-ever Chicano youth conference in
March 1969, which was attended by
many future Chicano activists and
artists. The conference also
promulgated the Plan Espiritual de
Aztlán, a manifesto demanding selfdetermination for Chicanos. As an
early figure of the movement for the
equal rights of Mexican Americans,
he is often considered one of the
founders of the Chicano Movement.
From "I am Joaquin"
By Rodolfo "Corky" Gonzales
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I am Joaquin,
Lost in a world of confusion,
Caught up in a whirl of a gringo society,
Confused by the rules, Scorned by attitudes,
Suppressed by manipulations, And
destroyed by modern society.
My fathers have lost the economic battle
and won the struggle of cultural survival.
And now! I must choose between the
paradox of
Victory of the spirit, despite physical hunger
Or
to exist in the grasp of American social
neurosis,
sterilization of the soul, and a full stomach.
YES,
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I have come a long way to nowhere,
Unwillingly dragged by that
monstrous, technical industrial giant called
Progress and Anglo success...
I look at myself. I watch my brothers.
I shed tears of sorrow.
I sow seeds of hate.
I withdraw to the safety within the
Circle of life...
MY OWN PEOPLE
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I am Cuauhtemoc,
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THE GROUND WAS MINE.
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Proud and Noble Leader of men, King of an empire,
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I was both tyrant and slave.
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civilized beyond the dreams of the Gachupin Cortez,
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As Christian church took its place in God's good name,
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Who also is the blood, the image of myself.
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to take and use my Virgin strength and Trusting faith,
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The priests both good and bad, took
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I am the Maya Prince.
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But
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I am Netzahualcoyotl,
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gave a lasting truth that
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Great leader of the Chichimecas.
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Spaniard, Indian, Mestizo
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I am the sword and flame of Cortez the despot.
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Were all God's children
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And
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And from these words grew men who prayed and fought
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for their own worth as human beings, for that
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GOLDEN MOMENT
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Of
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FREEDOM.
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I am the Eagle and Serpent of the Aztec civilization.
I owned the land as far as the eye could see under the
crown of Spain,
and I toiled on my earth and gave my Indian sweat and
blood for the Spanish master,
Who ruled with tyranny over man and beast and all that he
could trample
But...
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I am Joaquin.
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I rode with Pancho Villa, crude and warm.
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A tornado at full strength, nourished and inspired 
by the passion and the fire of all his earth, people. 
I am Emillano Zapata.
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"This Land This Earth Is OURS"
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The Villages
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The Mountains
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The Streams
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belong to Zapatistas.
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Our life
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Or yours is the only trade for soft brown earth and
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maiz.
All of which is our reward, A creed that formed a
constitution for all who dare live free!
"This land is ours... Father, I give it back to you.
Mexico must be free..."
I ride with Revolutionists
against myself.
I am Rural Course and brutal,
I am the mountain Indian, superior over all.
The thundering hoof beats are my horses.
The chattering of machine guns'
are death to all of me:
Yaqui
Tarahumara
Chamula
Zapotec
Mestizo
Espanol
Activities:
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You will be divided into groups of up to 4, and
given the poem selection in hand-out form. Next,
your group will choose one of the poems from the
selection, and discuss the following questions. Write
your responses on a separate sheet of paper with
all group member names. Be prepared to read the
poem to the class, and support your answers with
textual evidence!
Questions: What do you think the poem means…
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Who or what is the subject of the poem?
What are they talking about?
Why do you think the author wrote the poem?
Where is the poem happening?
What is the poet’s attitude?
Identify the theme (central idea) of the poem.
Assessment:
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As an individual, your notes will be graded for
completion ??/20 pts
Your group will be graded on presentation of the
poem, as well as the answers to those questions.
Always use textual evidence to support your
answers, and explain how the textual evidence
supports your answers.
??/30 pts
Total: ??/50 pts