Imagine the Angels of Bread

National Catholic Reporter, May 24, 1996 by David Charlton

One history of the United States would have us believe the country to be the rightful home to an English-speaking population dedicated to the pursuit of happiness available through earning and consumption. Other histories must take into account the fact that in a competitive system not everybody wins or even survives. These are the histories of the poor, that population we know to have a disproportionate representation of the non-Anglo races.

Martin Espada's books have consistently contributed to these unglamorous histories of the struggle against injustice and misfortune. Espada's own Puerto Rican background provides the impetus for many of his poems, but he observes through a broader lens that encompasses Nicaragua, Cesar Chavez, Neruda's Chile and, by implication, those other populations that have felt the sting of unfair policies and prejudices.

The label of "political" poetry may be well-intentioned in referring to the ideals behind the work, but it is one I have come to distrust. Poetry lives by its qualities regardless of the subject matter. It would be all too simple for those who disagree with him to say that the poet writes well but that his outlook on the world is jaundiced.

First, the writing itself must be convincing enough to establish the writer's credibility. Ranting is easy, but telling somebody's story so as to make it significant and worthy of attention demands more guile. Espada has proven himself a strong adversary for supporters of a status quo that thrives on keeping a class of people as victims. Most of all, the poems kindle the hope that comes from an act of resistance. Here also lies the pointed humor that infiltrates the darkness. In "The Foreman's Wallet," set in a printing plant, the employees are dismissed without notice, and then

No one knows who set the first

wheel of paper rolling across the

floor,

who speared the soda machine

with a two-by-four,

who winged unstapled copies of

Commanders Digest

so they flew, with their diagrams

of bombers,

through the room.

A moment captured with lyricism often springs out of a poem like a single brush stroke of color in a monochrome setting. "Offerings to an Ulcerated God" proceeds in simply stated language, accounting for the conditions of Mrs. Lopez's apartment, until a judge disregards her argument, leaving the interpreter, who

felt the burning

bubble in his throat

as he slowly turned to face her.

Many of the world's darkest rooms are the laboratories in which animal experiments take place. "Do Not Put Dead Monkeys in the Freezer" opens the door to such a place, where the monkeys do "countless somersaults/in every cage on the row." Here are "monkeys with numbers and letters/on bare stomachs,/monkeys clamped and injected, monkeys."

Espada writes that he "understood/when a monkey leapt from the cage/and bit my thumb through the rubber glove," as the subject of the experiments snaps back at an oppressor. Were such laboratories a literary invention, they would be fine metaphors for the situations of humans, but this poem, like the others in the book, draws on fact rather than fiction.

From "the bassoon" of his infant son's lungs, which play "the cadenza of the next century," to the "Christ executed with a beggar's ribs" over the chapel by the grave of Puerto Rican poet Clemente Soto Velez, the life cycle is marked by moments of illumination.

Another writer to whom Espada pays tribute is Demetria Martinez in "Sing in the Voice of a God Even Atheists Can Hear," referring to the poem used against her in her sanctuary movement trial as "evidence abducted from her desk."

Imagine the Angels of Bread stands as an impassioned plea for a reassessment of both public and private attitudes toward people disadvantaged by their race. The conflict is huge. The beauty is in the details.