“Everyone seemed more American than we, newly arrived, foreign dirt still on our soles. Meaning that the end of the lines do not rhyme. The majority of Alvarez’s poems are formatted in free verse. Having someone who is so different from me also be so relatable to me in multiple ways is something that I appreciated from reading Alvarez’s poetry. I relate to that a lot because I often feel as if my parents want me to be a certain way and I relate to wanting to get out from underneath that. She talks about dealing with her family’s and society’s pressures on her and how she wants to get out from underneath their views, like in her poem Dusting. She is able to be vulnerable without seeming weak. In the poems that I studied, Alvarez is extremely open about her struggles and her family life. Alvarez is able to be relatable to people all across the board even though her story is so unique. Between moving schools and states frequently, I can relate to stepping out of your comfort zone and feeling like an outcast. Even though I have never been in a situation where I have had to flee a country, I have been the new girl in quite a few situations. Even as someone who has never been and never will be a minority, I still can relate to her poems which I think is really cool. In her housekeeping poems, she relates to girls who are itching to get out from their parents oppressing molds. She writes about fitting in, stepping out of her comfort zone, and daily struggles of a teen. I dug it real, real strong.Julia Alvarez lived out a unique story but is still able to relate to minorities in the 1960s and today. I needed that wisdom, to know that I wasn't following in vain. And inside this poem-under and over the words-there is wisdom: "We arrive where we were promised." The poet did not disappoint me, as I followed the journey. Along the way, the poet layers lyric subjectivity with imagery that is at once new, but somehow, familiar to someplace previously unknown inside me. "On Sundays" is a poem that literally takes me on a journey with the speaker, past landscape and memory and confusion into revelation. Knows that I'm there, giving a chance to the poem, even if I don't know where I am going-even if I don't want to know where I am going. I want to know that the poet, while writing for him- or herself, also writes for me. Sure, I lap up the language-gobble it up-but just as I admit that I have a weakness for beauty, I also have a weakness for understanding-or at least, for a poet's empathy with the reader. But language alone cannot carry a poem for me. I need the startling weft of words moving under and over each other in a poem. I admit that I am a sucker for a poem that exhibits beauty and luminosity. The language of a poem is what draws me in. Reprinted by permission of Stuart Bernstein Representation for Artists, New York, NY. What we longed for in ourselves, each other.Ĭopyright © 2015 by Julia Alvarez. In the distance, spired with whitecaps, belled Instead I practiced patience in the face ofĪnd it lay before us: vast and blue, roaring The skill of choosing predictable outcomes. Or sprinkled with confetti colors, honing Ice cream under sliding glass doors, deliberations With its candycane-striped awning, its blastįirst hand, the cartons of imported ices, Which might be why I chose it every time Or coming after us, as we raced up the beach, Opening for boats, toys, kids-spitting them backĪs driftwood, shell shards, tiny skeletons The way the sea was hungry, its ragged mouths We meant to get to, what we hungered for, Our chins and swimsuits-as if to teach us The corner, for cement-errands he omitted Required a stop at the almacén, just around To pick-just the right size, the right shape, The trunk with river stones that took hours Whom we belonged to, the choice disguised
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