Passionate Hispanic Poetry - PowerPoint Presentation

Slide1

Passionate Hispanic Poetry

A lesson in cultural diversitySlide2

A Collection of Hispanic Poetry

The following is a growing collection of poetry that reflects both the passion, and experiences of Latinos in America. There is brief biographical information on each of the poets offered. This collection is a work in progress, and all contributions are welcome, whether it is something you have found, or something you have personally created. Please submit any new material to Ms. Sabo for consideration.Slide3

Poetry is more than you have been taught!

“We don't read and write poetry because it's cute. We read and write poetry because we are members of the human race. And the human race is filled with passion. So medicine, law, business, engineering... these are noble pursuits and necessary to sustain life. But poetry, beauty, romance, love... these are what we stay alive for

.”

“When you read, don't just consider what the author thinks, consider what you

think.”

La

Sociedad

de los

Poetas

MuertosSlide4

The following CCSD Standards will be covered in this lesson:

Prepare to organize Cornell notes for the day’s lesson:

RL.11-12.1

Cite strong and thorough textual evidence to support analysis of what the text says explicitly as well as inferences drawn from the text, including determining where the text leaves matters uncertain.

NV 3.12.5

Evaluate

the use and purpose of imagery, figurative language, and sound devices; analyze the author’s use of language and/or syntax.

NV 3.12.7

Analyze

the influence of historical events and culture on an author’s work.Slide5

Themes often found in Hispanic Poetry:Slide6

History of Mexican Immigrants to America:Slide7

Historical Context

When did the Hispanic community’s quest for justice begin? Their activism actually predates the 1960s. In the 1940s and ’50s, for example, Hispanics won two major legal victories. The first—Mendez v. Westminster Supreme Court—was a 1947 case that prohibited segregating Latino schoolchildren from white children. It proved to be an important predecessor to Brown v. Board of Education, in which the U.S. Supreme Court determined that a “separate but equal” policy in schools violated the Constitution. In 1954, the same year Brown appeared before the Supreme Court, Hispanics achieved another legal feat in Hernandez v. Texas. In this case, the Supreme Court ruled that the Fourteenth Amendment guaranteed equal protection to all racial groups, not just blacks and whites.

In the 1960s and '70s, Hispanics not only pressed for equal rights, they began to question the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo. This 1848 agreement ended the Mexican-American War and resulted in America acquiring territory from Mexico that currently comprises the Southwestern U. S. During the Civil Rights Era, Chicano radicals began to demand that the land be given to Mexican Americans, as they believed it constituted their ancestral homeland, also known as

Aztlán

.They

argued the U.S.’s annexing of Mexican land in

the 1800s

was illegal.Slide8

Duality by Herman

Sillas’ Art and ActivismSlide9

Jimmy Santiago-Baca

Jimmy Santiago Baca was born in Santa Fe County, New Mexico, in 1952. Abandoned by his parents at the age of two, he lived with one of his grandmothers for several years before being placed in an orphanage. He wound up living on the streets, and at the age of twenty-one he was convicted on charges of drug possession and incarcerated. He served six and a half years in prison, three of them in isolation, and having expressed a desire to go to school (the guards considered this dangerous), he was for a time put in the same area of the prison with the inmates on death row before he was released

. Slide10
Slide11

Martin & Meditations on the South

Valley

IVSend me news Rafa of the pack dogs sleepingin wrecked cars in empty yards,or los

veteranos

dreaming in their whiskey bottles

on porches

of the past, full of glory and fear.

The black smell of wet earth

seeps into old leaning adobes,

and prowls like a black panther through open windows.Austere-faced hombreshoeing their jadines

de

chile

y

maiz

in the morning,

crush beer cans and stuff them in gunny sacks

and pedal on rusty bicycles

in the afternoon to the recycling scale,

and at Coco’s

chante

at dusk

tecatos

se

juntan

,

la

cocina

jammed like the stick exchange lobby,

a los

vatos

raise their fingersindicating cuanto quieren.There is so much I miss Rafa,so send me news. Slide12

XVII

I

love the windwhen it blows through my barrio.It hisses its snake love down

calles

de

polvo

,

and cracks egg-shell skins

of abandoned homes.

Stray dogs find shelteralong the river,where great cottonwoods rattlelike old covered wagons,stuck in stagnant waterholes.

Days when the wind blows

full of sand and grit,

men and women make decisions

that change their whole lives.

Windy days in the barrio

give birth to divorce papers

and squalling separation. The wind tells us

what others refuse to tell us,

informing men and women of a secret,

that they move away to hide from.Slide13
Slide14

IX

Eddie blew his head offplaying chicken

with his brother, Para proofhe was man,he blew his head off.Don’t toll the bell brother,‘cuz he was not religious.

The gray donkey he liked to talk to

at Dead Man’s Corner

grazes sadly. Eddie’s gone, its black-lashed dark eyes

mourn. His

tio

Manuel shatters a bottle

of La Copita wine against the adobe wallwhere he and his compass drink every afternoon,

and Manuel weeps for Eddie.

“

He was the kid without a coat

During the winter, ‘Member he stole

Those gloves? Nice gloves.

He gave ‘

em

to me

ese

.”

Blew his head off.

The explosion of the gun

was the golden flash of his voice

telling us no more, no more, no more.

His last bloody words

water the dried weeds

where his

jefa

threw the stucco fragments

out. Sparrows peck his brains outsideby fence posts.Slide15

Flaco said, “Don’t give him no eulogy!

He was for brothers and sisters in struggle. You know I saw him in court one day, when they handcuffed his older brother to take his brother to prison, you know Eddie jumped the

benches, and grabbed his brother’s

handcuffs, yelling, don’t take my brother

he is not a bad man!”

Everybody in Southside knew Eddie,

little Eddie, bad little Eddie.

He treated everybody with respect and honor.

With black-board classroom attentionhe saw injustice, hanging out en las

calles

,

sunrise ‘til sunset, with the bros and sisters.

Don’t ring the bell, brother.

Let it lie dead.

Let the heavy metal rust.

Let the rope fray and swing mutely

in the afternoon dust and wind.

How many times they beat you Eddie?

How many police clubs

are smeared with your blood,

Switch blade en

bolsa

,

manos

de

peidra

,

ne la

linea con sus carnales,to absorb the tire-jack beating from other locotes, billy

-club beatings de la

jura

-

your blood Eddie spotted

sidewalks,

smeared shovel handles,

coated knife blades

blurred your eyes and painted your body

in a tribal-barrio dance

to set yourself free,to know what was beyond the boundariesyou were born into.Slide16
Slide17

from Healing Earthquakes: Poems by Santiago-Baca

A lover must liberate his lover, free her of lies to be

entirely honest,a lover’s heart must be a page-turner book filled withfamiliar feelings of trust, dreams,

a lover’s mouth must fit her mouth like two fingerprints

perfectly

matched

in a crime of obsession for each other.

Two lovers bring the story to life

that resides in each other’s hearts,

and the living of those two stories lifts the two loversinto heights where only eagles fly,

fly over different-colored skin,

fly over different cultures,

fly over dark and brooding days,

fly both of them,

even when she is on stage and

dancing

she keeps him under her

wings…

and later when she is talking to someone, she

says,Oh

yes, my love

or my husband, or my sweetness, in referring to

the other half of

her heart…Slide18
Slide19

Pablo Neruda

A Chilean writer considered one of the most influential poets of the 20th century.. Chilean poet diplomat and politician; Nobel Prize for Literature 1971. Neruda became known as a poet while still a teenager. He wrote in a variety of styles including surrealist poems, historical epics, overtly political manifestos, a prose autobiography, and erotically-charged love poems such as the ones in his 1924 collection Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair. He often wrote in green ink, which was his personal symbol for desire and hope.Slide20

Sonetos de Amor

Sonnet

17I do not love you as if you were salt-rose or topaz,or the arrow of carnations the fire shoots off.I love you as certain dark things are to be loved,

in secret, between the shadow and the soul.

I love you as the plant that never blooms

but carries in itself the light of hidden flower

thanks to your love a certain solid fragrance,

risen from the earth, lives darkly in my body.

I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where.

I love you straightforwardly, without complexities or pride;

so I love you because I know no other way

than this: where I does not exist, nor you,

so close that your hand on my chest is my hand,

so close that your eyes close as I fall asleep.

Soneto

17

No

te

como

si

fueras

rosa

de

sal

,

topacioo fleche de claveles que propagan

el

fuego

:

te

amo

como

se

aman ciertas cosas oscuras

,

secretamente

, entre la

sombra

y el alma.

Te

amo

como

el planta que no florece y llevadentro de si, escondida, la luz aquellas flores,y gracias a tu amor vive oscuro en mi cuerpoel apretado aroma que ascendio de la tierra.Te amo sin saber como, ni cuando, ni de donde,te amo directamente sin problemas ni orgullo:asi te amo porque no se amar de otra manera.sino asi de este modo en que no soy ni eres,tan cerca que tu mano sobre mi pecho es mia,tan cerca que se cierran tus ojos con mi sueno.Slide21

Sonnet

LXXXI

And now you’re mine. Rest with your dream in my dream.Love and pain and work should all sleep, now.

The night turns on its invisible wheels,

and you are pure beside me as a sleeping amber.

No one else, Love, will sleep in my dreams. You will go,

we will go together, over the waters of time.

No one else will travel through the shadows with me,

only you, evergreen, ever sun, ever moon.

Your hands have already opened their delicate fists

and let their soft drifting signs drop away;

your eyes closed like two gray wings, and I move

after following the folding water you carry, that carries

one away. The night, the world, the wind spin out their destiny,

Without you, I am your dream, only that, and that is all.

Soneto

LXXXI

Y a

eres

mia

.

Reposa

con

tu

sueno

en mi

sueno

,

Amor, dolor, trabajos, deben dormer ahora

.

Gira

la

noche

sobre

sus

invisibles

ruedasy junto a mi eres pura

como

el

ambar

dormido

.

Ninguna

mas,

amor

, dormira con mis suenos.Iras, iremos juntos por las aguas del tiempo.Ninguna viajara por la sombra cinmigo,solo tu, siempreviva, siempre sol, siempre luna.Ya tus manos abrieron los punos delicados,y dejaren caer suaves signos sin rumbo,tus ojos se cerraron como dos alas grises,mientras yo sigo el agua que llevas y me lleva:la noche, el mundo, el viento devanan su destino,y ya no soy sin ti sino solo tu sueno.Slide22

Sandra Cisneros:

Sandra Cisneros (born December 20, 1954 in Chicago) is a United States author and poet best known for her novel The House on Mango Street. She is also the author of

Caramelo, published by Knopf in 2002. Much of her writing is influenced by her Mexican-American heritage. Slide23

Cloud by: Sandra Cisneros

If you are a poet, you will see clearly that there is a cloud floating in this sheet of paper.

-Thich Nhat Hanh

Before you became a cloud, you were an ocean, roiled and

murmuring like a mouth. You were the shadows of a cloud cross-

ing

over a field of tulips . You were the tears of a man who cried

into a plaid handkerchief. You were the sky without a hat. Your

heart puffed and flowered like sheets drying on a line.

And when you were a tree, you listened to the trees and the treethings trees told you. You were the wind in the wheels of a red

bicycle. You were the spidery

Mariatattooed

on the hairless arm

of a boy in

dowtown

Houston. You were the rain rolling off the

waxy leaves of a magnolia tree. A lock of straw-colored hair

wedged between the mottled pages of a Victor Hugo novel. A

crescent of soap. A spider the color of a fingernail. The black nets

beneath the sea of olive trees. A skein of blue wool. A tea saucer

wrapped in newspaper . An empty cracker tin. A bowl of

blueber

-

ries

in heavy cream. White wine in a green-stemmed glass .

And when you opened your wings to wind, across the punched-

tin sky above a prison courtyard, those condemned to death and

those condemned to life watched how smooth and sweet a white

cloud glides.Slide24

Rodolfo "Corky" Gonzales

Rodolfo "Corky"

Gonzáles (June 30, 1928 – April 12, 2005) was a Mexican American boxer, poet, and political activist. He convened the first-ever Chicano youth conference in March 1969, which was attended by many future Chicano activists and artists. The conference also promulgated the Plan Espiritual de

Aztlán

, a manifesto demanding self-determination for Chicanos. As an early figure of the movement for the equal rights of Mexican Americans, he is often considered one of the founders of the Chicano Movement. Slide25

From

"I am Joaquin"By Rodolfo "Corky" Gonzales

I am Joaquin,

Lost in a world of confusion,

Caught up in a whirl of a gringo society,

Confused by the rules, Scorned by attitudes,

Suppressed by manipulations, And destroyed by modern society.

My fathers have lost the economic battle and won the struggle of cultural survival.

And now! I must choose between the paradox of

Victory of the spirit, despite physical hunger Or

to exist in the grasp of American social neurosis,

sterilization of the soul, and a full stomach.

YES,

I have come a long way to nowhere, Unwillingly dragged by that

monstrous, technical industrial giant called

Progress and Anglo success...

I look at myself. I watch my brothers.

I shed tears of sorrow.

I sow seeds of hate.

I withdraw to the safety within the

Circle of life...

MY OWN PEOPLESlide26

I am

Cuauhtemoc,

Proud and Noble Leader of men, King of an empire, civilized beyond the dreams of the Gachupin Cortez, Who also is the blood, the image of myself. I am the Maya Prince. I am Netzahualcoyotl,

Great leader of the

Chichimecas

.

I am the sword and flame of Cortez the despot.

And

I am the Eagle and Serpent of the Aztec civilization.

I owned the land as far as the eye could see under the crown of Spain, and I toiled on my earth and gave my Indian sweat and blood for the Spanish master,

Who ruled with tyranny over man and beast and all that he could trample

But...

THE GROUND WAS MINE.

I was both tyrant and slave.

As Christian church took its place in God's good name,

to take and use my Virgin strength and Trusting faith,

The priests both good and bad, took

But

gave a lasting truth that

Spaniard, Indian, Mestizo

Were all God's children

And from these words grew men who prayed and fought

for their own worth as human beings, for that

GOLDEN MOMENT

Of

FREEDOM.Slide27

I am Joaquin.

I rode with Pancho

Villa, crude and warm. A tornado at full strength, nourished and inspired by the passion and the fire of all his earth, people. I am Emillano Zapata. "This Land This Earth Is OURS"

The Villages

The Mountains

The Streams

belong to Zapatistas.

Our life

Or yours is the only trade for soft brown earth and

maiz. All of which is our reward, A creed that formed a constitution for all who dare live free! "This land is ours... Father, I give it back to you.

Mexico must be free..."

I ride with Revolutionists

against myself.

I am Rural Course and brutal,

I am the mountain Indian, superior over all.

The thundering hoof beats are my horses.

The chattering of machine guns'

are death to all of me:

Yaqui

Tarahumara

Chamula

Zapotec

Mestizo

EspanolSlide28

Activities:

You will be divided into groups of up to 4, and given the poem selection in hand-out form. Next, your group will choose one of the poems from the selection, and discuss the following questions. Write your responses on a separate sheet of paper with all group member names. Be prepared to read the poem to the class, and support your answers with textual evidence!Slide29

Questions: What

do you think the poem means…

Who or what is the subject of the poem?What are they talking about?Why do you think the author wrote the poem?Where is the poem happening?What is the poet’s attitude?

Identify the theme (central idea) of the poem.Slide30

Assessment:

As an individual, your notes will be graded for completion ??/20

ptsYour group will be graded on presentation of the poem, as well as the answers to those questions. Always use textual evidence to support your answers, and explain how the textual evidence supports your answers.

??/30

pts

Total: ??/50

pts