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Floaters : poems / Martín Espada.

By: Material type: TextTextPublisher: New York, NY : W. W. Norton & Company, Inc., [2021]Edition: First editionDescription: xiii, 75 pages ; 22 cmContent type:
  • text
Media type:
  • unmediated
Carrier type:
  • volume
ISBN:
  • 9780393541038
  • 0393541037
Subject(s): Genre/Form:
Contents:
Machine generated contents note: I. Jumping Off The Mystic Tobin Bridge -- Jumping Off the Mystic Tobin Bridge -- Floaters -- Ode to the Soccer Ball Sailing Over a Barbed-Wire Fence -- Not for Him the Fiery Lake of the False Prophet -- Boxer Wears América 1st Shorts in Bout With Mexican, Finishes Second -- Mazen Sleeps With His Foot on the Floor -- I Now Pronounce You Dead -- II. Asking Questions Of The Moon -- The Story of How We Came to America -- Why I Wait for the Soggy Tarantula of Spinach -- The Stoplight at the Corner Where Somebody Had to Die -- Death Rides the Elevator in Brooklyn -- The Cannon on the Hood of My Father's Car -- Asking Questions of the Moon -- Standing on the Bridge at Dolceacqua -- III. Love Song Of The Kraken -- Aubade With Concussion -- I Would Steal a Car for You -- That We Will Sing -- Love Song of the Kraken -- Love Song of the Galápagos Tortoise -- Love is a Luminous Insect at the Window -- Insulting the Prince -- The Assassination of the Landlord's Purple Vintage 1976 Monte Carlo -- IV. Morir Soñando -- Remake of Me the Sickle for Thy Grain -- Be There When They Swarm Me -- The Bard Shakes the Snow From the Trees -- Flan -- Morir Soñando -- The Five Horses of Doctor Ramón Emeterio Betances -- Letter to My Father.
Awards:
  • Winner of the Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize.
  • National Book Award Winner for Poetry, 2021.
Summary: "From the winner of the Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize come masterfully crafted narratives of protest, grief, and love. In this collection, Martín Espada bears witness to confrontation with anti-immigrant bigotry as a tenant lawyer years ago, and now sings the praises of Central American adolescents playing soccer in an internment camp founded on that same bigotry. He knows that times of hate also call for poems of love--even in the voice of a Galápagos tortoise. Whether celebrating the visions of fallen dreamers and poets or condemning the devastation of Hurricane Maria and official negligence in his father's Puerto Rico, Espada invokes ferocious, incandescent spirits"-- Provided by publisher.
List(s) this item appears in: Poetry Month
Holdings
Item type Home library Collection Call number Materials specified Status Date due Barcode Item holds
Adult Book Adult Book Main Library NonFiction 811.6 E77 Checked out 05/14/2024 33111010807242
Total holds: 0

Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

Martín Espada is a poet who "stirs in us an undeniable social consciousness," says Richard Blanco. Floaters offers exuberant odes and defiant elegies, songs of protest and songs of love from one of the essential voices in American poetry.

Floaters takes its title from a term used by certain Border Patrol agents to describe migrants who drown trying to cross over. The title poem responds to the viral photograph of Óscar and Valeria, a Salvadoran father and daughter who drowned in the Río Grande, and allegations posted in the "I'm 10-15" Border Patrol Facebook group that the photo was faked. Espada bears eloquent witness to confrontations with anti-immigrant bigotry as a tenant lawyer years ago, and now sings the praises of Central American adolescents kicking soccer balls over a barbed wire fence in an internment camp founded on that same bigotry. He also knows that times of hate call for poems of love--even in the voice of a cantankerous Galápagos tortoise.

The collection ranges from historical epic to achingly personal lyrics about growing up, the baseball that drops from the sky and smacks Espada in the eye as he contemplates a girl's gently racist question.

Whether celebrating the visionaries--the fallen dreamers, rebels and poets--or condemning the outrageous governmental neglect of his father's Puerto Rico in the wake of Hurricane María, Espada invokes ferocious, incandescent spirits.

"From the winner of the Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize come masterfully crafted narratives of protest, grief, and love. In this collection, Martín Espada bears witness to confrontation with anti-immigrant bigotry as a tenant lawyer years ago, and now sings the praises of Central American adolescents playing soccer in an internment camp founded on that same bigotry. He knows that times of hate also call for poems of love--even in the voice of a Galápagos tortoise. Whether celebrating the visions of fallen dreamers and poets or condemning the devastation of Hurricane Maria and official negligence in his father's Puerto Rico, Espada invokes ferocious, incandescent spirits"-- Provided by publisher.

Machine generated contents note: I. Jumping Off The Mystic Tobin Bridge -- Jumping Off the Mystic Tobin Bridge -- Floaters -- Ode to the Soccer Ball Sailing Over a Barbed-Wire Fence -- Not for Him the Fiery Lake of the False Prophet -- Boxer Wears América 1st Shorts in Bout With Mexican, Finishes Second -- Mazen Sleeps With His Foot on the Floor -- I Now Pronounce You Dead -- II. Asking Questions Of The Moon -- The Story of How We Came to America -- Why I Wait for the Soggy Tarantula of Spinach -- The Stoplight at the Corner Where Somebody Had to Die -- Death Rides the Elevator in Brooklyn -- The Cannon on the Hood of My Father's Car -- Asking Questions of the Moon -- Standing on the Bridge at Dolceacqua -- III. Love Song Of The Kraken -- Aubade With Concussion -- I Would Steal a Car for You -- That We Will Sing -- Love Song of the Kraken -- Love Song of the Galápagos Tortoise -- Love is a Luminous Insect at the Window -- Insulting the Prince -- The Assassination of the Landlord's Purple Vintage 1976 Monte Carlo -- IV. Morir Soñando -- Remake of Me the Sickle for Thy Grain -- Be There When They Swarm Me -- The Bard Shakes the Snow From the Trees -- Flan -- Morir Soñando -- The Five Horses of Doctor Ramón Emeterio Betances -- Letter to My Father.

Winner of the Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize.

National Book Award Winner for Poetry, 2021.

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