Speaking of pirates… today we celebrate Poetry Friday with a sea song. Or the hint of one, at least.
“And silver the coins and silver the moon, / Silver the waves on the top of the sea…” starts Jane Yolen’s The Ballad of the Pirate Queens, an adventure that sings the history of Anne Bonney and Mary Reade, the only two women of the twelve pirates aboard the legendary Vanity ship, in 1720.
Jane Yolen never disappoints. Neither does Poetry Friday, today at Miss Rumphius Effect. This installment unveils priceless treasures, such as Sylvia Vardell’s reviews of new poems by Gary Soto and Pat Mora, in celebration of Hispanic Heritage Month. So hurry up and check them out, mi hearties. They are worth their weight in gold!
Celebrating Hispanic Heritage Month, our website currently features Juan Felipe Herrera’s personal essay, “Apartment Heritage”, in which he beautifully reminisces about his relatives’ one-bedroom apartment in San Diego, where he lived with his family in the 1960’s. The essay uses the apartment as a metaphor for his identity formation, contrasting the life inside it — an “invisible library of culture and family histories”— to the life outside— “that uncanny, whirling splish-splash of chaos, unfiltered, untold.”
Much of Herrera’s work is autobiographical, and two of his books, Downton Boy (Scholastic. Ages 12+), winner of the 2007 Tomás Rivera Mexican American Children’s Book Award, and Upside Down Boy, illustrated by Elizabeth Gómez (Children’s Book Press. Ages 4-8), were inspired by his childhood as the son of migrant workers in the 1950’s. His family experienced what many thousands of others do who choose or are forced to leave their homeland to search for better, more secure lives.
For many years Herrera traveled with his parents through the small farming towns of California’s Central Valley, changing schools with the seasons, always the “new boy,” always yearning for stability. Stability, however, brought its own set of conflicts: between languages; between old and new; between tradition and change. In Downtown Boy, his mom worries about the lure of life in the city’s barrio, and urges him to stay “close to home.” But where is home when you have been moving around for so long?
With so many influences and so much to reconcile and draw from, it’s no surprise that Herrera not only became a poet, writer and performance artist but also founded bilingual theater, music and poetry troupes that travel the world, telling and singing stories of pride in heritage—and in newness.
Herrera’s recent poetry books for adults have been enthusiastically reviewed in The New York Times.
For more by other writers about Latino migrant workers, their struggles and accomplishments, see The Circuit, Harvesting Hope, Esperanza Rising and First Day in Grapes.
After our Jul/Aug special literacy focus, we now make way for Hispanic Heritage Month (Sep 15 - Oct 15), a celebration of the cultures and traditions of US residents who trace their roots back to Spain, Mexico and the Spanish-speaking nations of Central America, South America and the Caribbean. The theme this year is “Getting Involved: Our Families, Our Community, Our Nation.”
There will be all sorts of events happening throughout the country, and here’s what you’ll find on our website: interviews with author Pam Muñoz Ryan and youth services librarian Rose Zertuche-Treviño; gallery features showcasing the work of David Diaz and Susan Guevara; original heritage-related essays by Yuyi Morales and Juan Felipe Herrera, and plenty more. So dive in, and have fun – and check back here, too, as we continue the fiesta of Hispanic Heritage Month by blogging about it through Oct 15. There’s plenty of pride, information and fun to be gained from going deeper into this celebration!
Speaking of pirates… today we celebrate Poetry Friday with a sea song. Or the hint of one, at least.
