Synopsis
Wine-sipping syllables, a communion of bones, impetuous pinches of chile, and parrot-sassy guacamole. With a mélange of aromas and tastes, colors and sounds, award-winning poet Pat Mora invites readers into her home in this new collection of forty-nine odes. Inspired by Pablo Neruda s Odas Elemantales and reinvented with a Latina identity, Mora celebrates the ordinary in lyrics that are anything but. Her poetry is the poetry of space house patterns and adobe constructions and the human rhythms that happen inside. It is also the poetry of what she loves chocolate, books, dandelions, church bells, hope, courage, and even rain. Thick with the microcultures of foodstuffs, family, places, regions, deities, spirits, and literary figures, Mora s adobe universe is luscious and tactile, elemental and dynamic. From family gossip and beauty secrets, to women darning hand-me-downs, to reluctant hands carrying bodies across borders, Mora traverses the tangled threads of culture, community, family, gender, and injustice. Her vivid observations together with her deft handling of symmetry and meter make her poetry uniquely insightful, subtle, and elegant. Sprinkled with Spanish and plenty of spice, each ode is a sensory flurry of mind and body. Together they make a cauldron of flavorful, simmering language. They are meant to be savored as they slowly stir the soul.
VOYA
Mora weaves a gentle tapestry of poetry that reminds readers to stop rushing and embrace the wonder surrounding them. Warmth oozes from the crevices of these odes, which invite the reader to see the jewels that abound in everyday life. The collection of forty-nine works encompasses the elements that spin the scenery of everyday living-including everything from grasshoppers to rain. The crux of what really brings this work to the forefront is the Latino influences in the pieces. In the opening piece, "Ode to Adobe," the author gives a glimpse into an inviting home adorned in the colors of mango and papaya. The reader discovers such details as the generations of spirits that have flowed through the home and patron saints gossiping about an aunt. The inviting voice of the poet creates a place that could easily be a haven for the reader as well. The reader then becomes a passenger peering through a car window watching a man consumed with playing his violin in the piece "Ode to Desire," witnessing the bliss and rapture of the violinist as he plays himself into a parallel universe. Familiarity reaches out in this body of poetry. The style of the verse is relaxed and keeps the reader engaged. Beauty within the pieces makes this collection a fabulous find for school and public libraries. It also makes the book a must-have for libraries that serve Latino communities.