Authors: Francisco X. Alarcón
ISBN-13: 9780816521807, ISBN-10: 0816521808
Format: Paperback
Publisher: University of Arizona Press
Date Published: February 2002
Edition: 1st Edition
Francisco X. Alarcón is the author of ten volumes of poetry and several books of bilingual poetry for children. He has been a recipient of several literary prizes, including the Before Columbus Foundation American Book Award, the Pen Oakland Josephine Miles Award, and the UC Irvine Chicano Literary Prize. He currently teaches at the University of California, Davis, where he directs the Spanish for Native Speakers Program.
On the other side of night, Francisco Alarcón is waiting. One of Chicano literature's premier poets, Alarcón has brought his luminous images to the page in such acclaimed volumes as Sonnets to Madness and Other Misfortunes and Snake Poems. Now he has assembled the best of his work from fifteen years, along with fourteen new poems, in a book that distills his magical sense of reality into a cup brimming with passion. Raised in Guadalajara and now living in the San Francisco Bay area, Alarcón sees that " 'Mexican' / is not / a noun / or an / adjective / 'Mexican' / is a life / long / low-paying / job." Participating in a poetic tradition that goes back to the mystic Spanish poets of the sixteenth century, he brings us sonnets infused with romance and tendernessand shorter poems that are direct and hard-hitting commentaries on American society, as he cries out for "a more godlike god," one "who spends nights / in houses / of ill repute / and gets up late / on Saturdays." Alarcón invokes both the mysteries of Mesoamerica and the "otherness" of his gay identity. "My skin is dark / as the night / in this country / of noontime," he writes, "but my soul / is even darker / from all the light / I carry inside." In lyrical poems open to wide interpretation, he transcends ethnic concerns to address social, sexual, and historical issues of concern to all Americans. The fourteen new poems in From the Other Side of Night offer startling new commentaries on life and love, sex and AIDS. Shifting effortlessly between English and Spanishand even NahuatlAlarcón demonstrates the gift of language that has earned him both a wide readership and the admiration of fellowpoets. With this book, he invites new readers to meet him where the darkness is palpable and the soul burns bright.
In this bilingual edition, Chicano poet Alarcon presents a selection of the best of his work from 15 years, plus 14 new poems. Topics range from Mesoamerican mysteries to commentaries on gay identity, sex, and AIDS. Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information.
Acknowledgments | ||
Tattoos | 3 | |
Roots | 4 | |
Dialectics of Love | 5 | |
Eros | 6 | |
Flags | 7 | |
Prayer | 8 | |
I Used to Be Much Much Darker | 10 | |
Un Beso Is Not a Kiss | 12 | |
Dark Light | 15 | |
Fugitive | 16 | |
In Praise of Tortillas | 18 | |
Acusado de todo | 19 | |
Patria | 20 | |
Zenthroamerika | 21 | |
A Shadow's Fate | 22 | |
Blessed | 23 | |
Bridge | 24 | |
Imprisoned Poet | 27 | |
So Real | 28 | |
Old Song | 30 | |
In a Neighborhood in Los Angeles | 31 | |
Advice of a Mother | 33 | |
Dark Room | 34 | |
My Father | 35 | |
A Small but Fateful Victory | 36 | |
Natural Criminal | 38 | |
The Other Day I Ran into Garcia Lorca | 39 | |
Everything Is an Immense Body | 40 | |
Prophetic Anatomy | 41 | |
Body in Flames | 42 | |
Las flores son nuestras armas | 43 | |
Love Doesn't Exist | 45 | |
My Hands | 46 | |
My Bed | 47 | |
Order in the Home | 48 | |
My Hair | 49 | |
My Dead | 50 | |
Letter to America | 51 | |
Loma Prieta | 55 | |
Memorial | 56 | |
Chance | 58 | |
Gatherers | 59 | |
Poor Poets | 61 | |
Victima del sismo | 62 | |
Lamentary | 64 | |
Blessed the Big One | 65 | |
Tambores | 67 | |
First-Person Eulogy | 68 | |
Vision | 70 | |
Four Directions | 75 | |
Hernando Ruiz de Alarcon (1587-1646) | 76 | |
In the Middle of the Night | 78 | |
Shame | 79 | |
Mestizo | 80 | |
Matriarch | 82 | |
Spirit Book | 83 | |
Songs | 85 | |
To Those Who Have Lost Everything | 86 | |
Never Alone | 88 | |
Nomatca Nehuatl | 89 | |
Journey | 91 | |
Traveler's Prayer | 93 | |
Midnight Water Song | 94 | |
Ololiuhqui | 95 | |
Morning Ritual | 96 | |
Seven Flower | 97 | |
For Planting Corn | 98 | |
Snake Wheel | 100 | |
Ode to Tomatoes | 102 | |
Potent Seeds | 103 | |
Against Anger | 105 | |
Face and Heart | 106 | |
For Finding Affection | 108 | |
For Love | 110 | |
Tonantzin | 111 | |
Cihuacoatl | 112 | |
Working Hands | 113 | |
In Xochitl In Cuicatl | 114 | |
Silence | 117 | |
The X in My Name | 118 | |
Streetwise | 119 | |
Californian Missions | 120 | |
L. A. Prayer | 121 | |
Soother | 123 | |
Amor zurdo | 124 | |
Seer | 125 | |
"Mexican" Is Not a Noun | 126 | |
Continental | 128 | |
Maternal Home | 130 | |
Isla Mujeres | 131 | |
There has never been sunlight for this love | 137 | |
Your hands are two hammers | 139 | |
Asleep you become a continent | 141 | |
I like to walk beside you | 143 | |
"There are two ways in this world ..." | 145 | |
Once again I look out your window | 147 | |
How to console the loneliest man ...? | 149 | |
New Day | 153 | |
I want to embrace you, dear wind | 155 | |
Your eyes show me how to see again | 157 | |
Back then hours were so long | 159 | |
Listen to me like that echo lost | 161 | |
And I said good-bye as if biting the air | 163 | |
Words are rusted keys | 165 | |
Beneath this language, there's another | 167 | |
For Us | 171 | |
Encounter | 172 | |
From the Other Side of Night | 173 | |
Out | 175 | |
Love Plea | 176 | |
Left | 178 | |
Ritual for Unloving | 179 | |
Boricua | 180 | |
In My Mouth | 186 | |
AIDS Blues | 187 | |
For Life | 188 | |
Questions | 189 | |
Tlazolteotl! | 190 | |
Desert Prayer | 194 | |
Afterword | 195 | |
Glossary | 205 | |
Critical Works | 211 |