Poetry Friday: The Wild Book

The Wild Book Margarita Engle

Homework Fear

The teacher at school
smiles, but she's too busy
to give me extra help,
so later, at home,
Mama tries to teach me.

She reminds me
to go oh-so-slowly
and take my time.
There is no hurry.
THe heavy book
will not rise up
and fly away.

When I scramble the sneaky letters
b and d, or the even trickier ones
r and l, Mama helps me learn
how to picture
the sep--a--rate
parts
of each mys--te--ri--ous
syl--la--ble.
Still, it's not easy
to go so
ss--ll--oo--ww--ll--yy.
S l o w l y.
SLOWLY!

I have to keep
warning myself
over and over
that whenever I try
to read too quickly,
my clumsy patience
flips over
and tumbles,
then falls...

Why?
Wwhhyyyy?
WHY?
¡Ay!

The doctor hisses Fefa's diagnosis like a curse-- word blindness*. She'll never read, or write. It's why she hates school so much, why the other kids taunt her when she has to read OUT LOUD.

But Fefa's mother has the heart of poet and doesn't accept the prognosis. She gives Fefa a blank book (one of the most terrifying things Fefa has seen) for her to fill with words as she gets them, slowly.

Fefa deals with the bullying and taunts of her classmates and siblings and slowly fills her book and slowly learns to detangle the letters.

Y'all know I'm a huge Engle fan. I'm most familiar with her YA stuff, but this one is more middle grade. There's a lot less politics and history**, as the main focus is Fefa's struggle with the written word. It's based on Engle's own grandmother and the stories she told of her own struggle with dyslexia.

Of course, one of the things that I like so much about Engle is how she weaves stories around Cuban history, so this wasn't my favorite one of hers. Also, there's only one narrator, while I'm used to her work being told in multiple voices. THAT SAID, it's still really good.

I like how Engle works with free verse and structure in this one to really capture Fefa's voice, especially when sounding words out and trying to figure out syllables. It's one that younger readers will enjoy and will cause them to seek out more of her work.

Today's Poetry Friday Round-up is over at... A Teaching Life. Be sure to check it out!


*Apparently, this is actually what they used to call dyslexia.

**Although it is set in 1912 Cuba and there is still some historical drama, it's just not the focus like it is in her other work.

Book Provided by... my local library

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Poetry Friday: Tropical Secrets

Tropical Secrets: Holocaust Refugees in Cuba Margarita Engle

Islands belong to the sea,
not the earch.

All around me
the world is blue.

Above, more blue,
like a hot, melting star.

Music is the only part
of Cuba's heated air

that feels like something
I can breathe.

Regular readers know I am a huge fan of Margarita Engle's verse novels. Each one deals with some aspect of Cuban history and is told in multiple voices. In this one, the main voice is Daniel, a Jewish teenager from Berlin, whose parents could only afford to get one person out, him. They said they'd meet him in New York, but his ship wasn't allowed to land in New York and ended up in Havanna. Paloma is a Cuban girl who helps the Quakers with the refugees. Her mother ran off to Paris with another man, her father charges huge fees and bribes for entry visas and then sometimes rejects the ship anyway. Her father has a few poems, too. The last voice is David, an old Ukranian Jew who fled to Cuba decades before.

It's the story of David trying to come to grips with life on a tropical island, his hope that he'll see his parents again, his growing knowledge that he probably won't. It's the story of Paloma coming to terms with the sins of her father. It's the story of their friendship.

It's a slight book, both in page count and also because of the verse format, but instead of leaving holes in the story, it makes it uncluttered and it never feels like there's too much going on. We just get brief glimpses into the lives of these people as they try to make sense of a world gone crazy. Engle's poetry really shines when describing Cuba-- how it feels, how it sounds, what it looks like. It helps make Daniel's initial disorientation all the more real, but we also see how he falls in love with the island.

It's also different than many of the WWII/Holocaust books out there. This is the first time I've read about the Jewish refugees in Cuba and it's not a part of the diaspora that is well covered, even in Jewish circles.

It's more personal and less sweeping than some of her other books and I recommend it.

Today's Poetry Friday round up is over at Random Noodling. Be sure to check it out!

Book Provided by... my local library

Links to Amazon are an affiliate link. You can help support Biblio File by purchasing any item (not just the one linked to!) through these links. Read my full disclosure statement.

Poetry Friday: Hurricane Dancers

Quebrado

Safety.
Such a small word.

The cave bristles
with sharp crystals
shaped like beaks and claws,
and flowing ones that resemble
glassy waterfalls...

If I am not dreaming,
then perhaps I am dead,
wandering along the paths
of an afterlife
filled with wildness
and beauty.

Hurricane Dancers: The First Caribbean Pirate Shipwreck Margarita Engle

I picked this one up mainly because it was a Belpre Honor book this year, but also because I've loved the other Engle books I've read.

Like most (all?) of her work, this is Cuban historical fiction, told in verse. There are two stories here-- the first is the (true) story of Bernadino de Talavera, a disgraced landowner who steals a ship to escape debtors prison and becomes a pirate. He then kidnaps Alonso de Ojeda, the governor of Venezuela. They get shipwrecked in a hurricane and land on the South Coast of Cuba. The second story is of Caucubu, the daughter of a chieftain, who fell in love with Narido, a fisherman. In order to escape an arranged marriage, Caucubu ran away from home and hid in a cave. This is also a true story and one that has been told and told and told throughout the centuries by Cuban authors. The link between the stories is the (fictional) Quebrado, a half-Taino, half-Spanish slave who survives the shipwreck and is rescued by Narido and must warn them of what de Talavera and de Ojeda are capable of.

These five voices narrate the book in this short tale of contact. The main thread of the story is Quebrado's escape and fragile freedom and how he grows and discovers himself. The problem is it's too short-- the other stories aren't fully realized or told and steal focus away from Quebrado. I wanted so much more. The juxtaposition and intertwining of the two stories demands something a little more... epic and sweeping than this sparse and slight tale.

Today's Poetry Friday Round up is over at Gotta Book. Be sure to check it out!

Book Provided by... my local library

Links to Amazon are an affiliate link. You can help support Biblio File by purchasing any item (not just the one linked to!) through these links. Read my full disclosure statement.

National Poetry Month: The Firefly Letters

The Firefly Letters: A Suffragette's Journey to Cuba Margarita Engle

Elena

The castle where Fredrika
spend her childhood
was haunted.

In the attic, there was a sword
that had beheaded a nobleman
during a war.

There were bloodstained clothes
beside the sword.

None of the servants would climb
up to the attic to fetch boxes or trunks
that had been stored
next to ghosts.

*********

This house where I live
it haunted too.

It was built by slaves
who rebelled, and buried an overseer
inside the walls.

Papa has never been able to find
the skeleton,
but sometimes at night
I hear pitiful moans
and rattling chains.

It is either the ghost
of some poor child
from the slave ships
being driven
to market.

In 1851, Sweden's first female novelist journeyed to Cuba. Drawing extensively from her journals, Engle writes a verse novel based on Fredrika Bremer's time there.

The book is mostly told in three voices-- Fredrika's, Elena's (the daughter of the rich family Fredrika is staying with) and Cecelia's (a slave belonging to Elena's family, who acts as Fredrika's translator and guide.)

Although I found the CONSTANT parallels drawn between a woman's role and actual slavery to be a bit much and overdrawn (yes, you had no freedom if you were a rich man's daughter, but you weren't in actual chains) overall, I did really enjoy this book. I also think it makes an interesting companion to Engle's other book on Cuban slavery, The Surrender Tree: Poems of Cuba's Struggle for Freedom. I especially enjoyed seeing Cuba through three different sets of eyes-- a slave who still remembered life in Africa, a Swedish aristocrat, and a Cuban aristocrat-- they had such different opinions and noticed such different things, it gives reader a more complete picture of daily life.

Book Provided by... my local library

Links to Amazon are an affiliate link. You can help support Biblio File by purchasing any item (not just the one linked to!) through these links. Read my full disclosure statement.

National Poetry Month Poetry Friday! The Surrender Tree

The Surrender Tree: Poems of Cuba's Struggle for Freedom Margarita Engle

Rosa

We experiment
like scientists.

One flower cures
only certain fevers.

We try another.
We fail, then try a root, leaf,
moss, or fern...

One petal fails.
Another succeeds.

Jose and I are both learning
how to learn.

Lieutenant Death

The witch
can be heard
singing in treetops.

The witch
can be seen--
a shadow
in caves.

I search,
and I search.

She vanishes,
just like the maddening
morning mists
and the wild
mambi rebels.

They attack.
We retreat.
They hide.
We seek.

The Surrender Tree starts in 1850, when Rosa, a slave girl with healing knowledge, is lent out to the slave hunter and his son. It follows Rosa, the son (Lieutenant Death), and a complete cast of characters throughout the next 50 years as Cuba fights multiple wars in an attempt to win independence from Spain. Throughout these years, Rosa (and her husband Jose) start field hospitals and work to heal those who are wounded or sick. Throughout these years, Lieutenant Death hunts the woman who heals the sick, the woman the girl he met years ago has grown into.

Most of the history and politics of the situation are explained in the backmatter, but they're not important for enjoying the story. The sparse language helps keep the tense mood as characters struggle for independence, survival, and a better future.

I really enjoyed the multiple narratives, clearly defined by naming each poem after the character speaking. It was very useful to see different views on the same situation-- not just different sides of the war, but what Rosa's thinking as she heals people followed by Jose's worries that she's working too hard and pushing herself too far. I especailly loved it later the book, when Silvia was introduced. The characters we started with had gone from children to older adults and the addition of a child's view of the situations was refreshing from the war-weary voices that had come to dominate.

Although I don't speak Spanish, I appreciated that this book is really 2 books in one-- the English edition followed by the complete Spanish translation. Not only does it make the work accessible to non-English readers, but I think this is a book that would work really well in a Spanish class.

And of course, it's the second Poetry Friday in April, which is National Poetry Month! This past week I featured poems from the anthology Not a Muse: The Inner Lives of Women, a World Poetry Anthology. This next week will be a grab-bag of things, but check back for your daily dose of poetry goodness.

Today's round-up is over at Madigan Reads!





Book Provided by... my local library

Links to Amazon are an affiliate link. You can help support Biblio File by purchasing any item (not just the one linked to!) through these links. Read my full disclosure statement.