Victor Hernández Cruz – one of America’s greatest poets
One of the greatest poets of America, Victor Hernández Cruz became the first Hispanic poet to be published by a mainstream publishing house. This happened in 1969, when his poem “Snaps” has been published by Random House. He was named one of America’s greatest poets by Life Magazine, in a 1981 edition.
Victor Hernández Cruz was born in Aguas Buenas, Puerto Rico, on February 6, 1949. In 1954, he moved together with his family to the United States, where he attended high school in New York.
He developed his love for writing at an early age, when he was only fifteen years old. According to his opinion, he started writing for creating a balance between the different worlds that he knew. He considered
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The judges considered that this work presents a complex connection between the two cultures – that of the US and of the Latino. They described Cruz as being a great poet, characterized by intelligence and humor.
However, his career doesn’t stop at being an author and editor. He is also the co-founder of the East Harlem Gut Theatre in New York and the Before Columbus Foundation. In addition to these, Cruz is a former editor of Umbra Magazine. He worked as a teacher at the University of California at Berkeley and San Diego, San Francisco State College and at the University of Michigan.
Cruz has been honored with fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and from the Guggenheim Foundation. Between 2008 and 2013, he served as a Chancellor of the Academy of American Poets.
Cruz considers that his poems are a way of traveling for him, and he explains that his poems don’t express himself, but rather his culture. Moving from Puerto Rico to the USA inspired his writings and gave his poems a unique feel that represents
Explication: I Am Offering This Poem by Santiago Baca In 1990, Jimmy Santiago Baca, an Apache author, wrote Immigrants in Our Own Land and Selected Early Poems. The novel had many prodigious poems; the most notable being his heart-filled ode I Am Offering This Poem. Throughout this explication, I will interpret the meaning of his work I Am Offering This Poem.
Soto was inspired to write poetry when he began to read it. He was influenced by poets like Edward Field’s, W.S. Merwin, Charles Simic, James Wright, Pablo Neruda, and novelist Gabriel Garcia Marquez to write it. Soto writes most of his poetry based on his life experience. Gary Soto writes poetry more for the youth although he has poetry that is published in the adult field. Gary Soto has written an autobiography on himself and a couple novels.
However, the purpose of the poem may also be to spread the frustrations and hardships that Mexicans
Upton Sinclair was an author and socialist figure during the early 1900s. His place in history was forged by his many accomplishments in successful writing that exposed the horrors of the meat packing industry. He was also a famed critique of the government and offered ideas on its reformation and even ran for governor as a socialist but primarily gained he place in history for his book The Jungle . Upton Sinclair is a significant figure in history due to his outspoken nature and his exposure of the meat industry that led to a multitude of new regulations making food in America safer.
Life is more of a story of our struggles and recollections for our past. In the midst of Jimmy Santiago Baca’s poem “XX,” the poem bares great significance to the imperfections of life and how our contributions to our past affect the outcome of the future. Life is a game were there is a winner and loser and to win the game one must display certain attributes in order to survive. Santiago’s poem reiterates the attributes that are being depicted through the viejos which are death, honor, and freedom.
Immigrant from Cuba Speaks His Mind through Poetry Luis Estable’s poems are simple yet thought-provoking and fun to read. Cuban immigrant Luis Estable offers his gift of poetry to America, and what a wonderful gift it is. Over the years, he has written hundreds of pieces of poetry, in styles ranging from free verse to sonnet. Estable covers a wide range of topics and themes, and he conveys different thoughts and emotions between the lines. Such poems are found in his first published book of poetry
Gary Soto, an inspiration writer, grew up in a small working class family that experienced various hardships thought their life. Soto learned from many experiences and later in life used these experiences for inspiration in his poetry. Soto, a prestigious writer with many awards, has written numerous books of poetry and fiction novels. “Oranges,” is a light, humorous poem about Soto growing up as a boy and walking with a young beautiful girl on a date to a local candy shop. Soto was born to a working class Mexican- American family with two other siblings in 1952.
During the Chicano Nationalist Movement, a well-known speaker, Rodolfo ‘Corky’ Gonzales, delivered a speech titled Chicano Nationalism: Victory for La Raza. In this speech, Rodolfo Gonzales tries to unify the Latin American people within the United States by using the idea of a family and to create a new political organization for the Chicano people. This speech was a cumulation of various ideas which stemmed from his own life, the experiences of the Chicano people, and the Chicano Nationalist Movement in general. Each of these factors contributed to the context of the speech and how the ideas within the speech are presented by Rodolfo Gonzales. Rodolfo ‘Corky’ Gonzales was born to Federico and Indalesia Gonzales, two Mexican immigrants, on June 18, 1928.
“Oranges,” “The Seventieth Year,” and “Avocado Lake,” showcase Soto’s ability to move a reader using an emotional story without the use of rhyme or rhythm. Through Soto’s poetry, he indicates the traits that define Mexican-American community
Throughout ‘Hunger of Memory’, the readers develop a sense of who Richard Rodriguez is. It becomes interesting and rather easy to note that he has spent most of his childhood life in ‘double’, whether it is from a linguistic perspective or an educational perspective. He gradually separates himself from his Spanish -Speaking family, while, forming a close bond with this English-Speaking public. However, what seems to be a bit tricky is how to identify an individual who undergoes such transition of a complete assimilation. According to Richard Rodriguez, the essayist, Richard Hoggart successfully developed an idea that seemed to define Rodriguez’ life completely.
In a poem it is very good to use different types of figurative language in the poem. These ideas are clearly seen in the poem”Identity” by Julio Noboa Polanco, talks about how it is good to be unique ,and yourself. Even if people dislike you or treat you with disrespect. In “Identity”Polanco uses the literary devices of simile, alliteration, and repetition. The poem that Polanco wote is about being unique and yourself is a good thing.
’s encounter with a personified Poetry itself. Like ‘Che’ the sublime and serendipitous interaction between Neruda and Poetry allows Neruda to redefine and further speculate about what is known, unknown, transparent and concealed, as a result of his discovery. Just as a child requires roughly nine months to be birthed, Guevara’s journey
His poems are about American’s everyday lives, especially focused on those of the local people
The innovations only increased the casualties in the war. On the other hand, Ford fell in love with writing. He pursued a education in writing and began writing his first novel at a young age. Ford continued writing many novels throughout his twenties. Just before his thirtieth birthday, Ford suffered from a nervous breakdown due to the tense atmosphere he was under.
Meena Alexander believes in poetry as political activism: her poetry often deals with conflicts and unrest, cities at the edge of war, episodes of discrimination, and so on. In an interview with Ruth Maxey, the poet admits that history conspires against the writing of poetry (Alexander 2009, 190). Many American poets have tried to do away with history, and to break the chains that still linked them to tradition, and to the old canon of British poetry. Alexander mentions Ralph Waldo Emerson, whose notion of self-reliance, which she interprets as reinvention of the self, “exhilarated” her (2009, 3). Chapter first of this study is entitled Identity which offers the theoretical framework of the term identity and the elements of identity in her works and try to find out her own identity.