One of our more overlooked older poets, Sanchez writes concise, wounded poems that work on the page as well as aloud. A tragedy of sorts written in terse terza rima, this short narrative poem mourns the poet's half-brother's death from AIDS. Borrowing techniques from Greek tragedy and African ritual storytelling and song, it has a section for each speaker: sister, brother, father, and chorus of ancestors. Permeated with the pain of abandonment—the abandoner's, as well as the victim's—the poem is a road map for the disintegrating family: 'this father always a guest/ never a permanent resident of my veins/ always a traveler to other terrains.' It fades into disembodied voices at the end, the brother's death being one terminus of the ancestral line. But it is the ancestors who offer strength and permanence because they have turned suffering into a stoical wisdom. Interesting and moving. —Library Journal Booklist
Rich in kin and kindred spirits, this panegyrical collection displays Sanchez's gift for crafting public poetry out of social issues and familial relationships. Straightforwardly, Sanchez (Wounded in the House of a Friend) documents her brother's death from AIDS, and the family's estrangement and reconciliation. Calculated tensions are expertly enhanced in rhyme royal stanzas where words and linebreaks virtually tumble across the page. The energy generated by this formal compression mirrors her brother's struggle against the confines of society: "and the days rummaging his eyes/ and the nights flickering through a slit/ of narrow bars. hips. thighs./ and his thoughts labeling him misfit/ as he prowled, pranced in the starlit/ city...." As the sequence of poems progresses, ancestral voices are introduced and the composition gives way to African words and rhythms: "i come, doctor./ mangi nyo captor." The stanzas compress and collapse as the brother's health deteriorates, ending in forceful dialogues between, for example, "brother" and "ancestor, female." Sanchez successfully evokes her brother's journey toward self-realization: "come here African/ come here African/ i am coming/ i am coming." In the volume's four sections, Sanchez moves from her brother's youth in the South, to his life in New York, and to his eventual death. Building in drama and preacherly cadences, this work is fluid, controlled and dexterously paced. (Apr.)
Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly
One of our more overlooked older poets, Sanchez writes concise, wounded poems that work on the page as well as aloud. A tragedy of sorts written in terse terza rima, this short narrative poem mourns the poet's half-brother's death from AIDS. Borrowing techniques from Greek tragedy and African ritual storytelling and song, it has a section for each speaker: sister, brother, father, and chorus of ancestors. Permeated with the pain of abandonmentthe abandoner's, as well as the victim'sthe poem is a road map for the disintegrating family: "this father always a guest/ never a permanent resident of my veins/ always a traveler to other terrains." It fades into disembodied voices at the end, the brother's death being one terminus of the ancestral line. But it is the ancestors who offer strength and permanence because they have turned suffering into a stoical wisdom. Interesting and moving, if occasionally straining to make a rhyme, this book is recommended.Ellen Kaufman, Dewey Ballantine Law Lib., New York
