Al pie de la Casa Blanca: Poetas hispanos de Washington, DC (review)

Abstract

Reviewed by: Al pie de la Casa Blanca: Poetas hispanos de Washington, DC Peggy Hale Bilbro Ambroggio, Luis Alberto, and Carlos Parada Ayala, eds. Al pie de la Casa Blanca: Poetas hispanos de Washington, DC. New York: ANLE, 2010. Pp. 355. ISBN 978-0-9821347-8-8. Reviews Prepared by Domnita Dumitrescu EDITORIAL POLICY: Hispania publishes reviews of selected books and electronic media in the following categories: Pan-Hispanic/Luso-Brazilian Literary and Cultural Studies; Linguistics, Language, and Media; and Fiction and Film. Publishers and authors should submit their materials for possible selection to the Book/Media Review Editor, Domnita Dumitrescu, Department of Modern Languages and Literatures, California State University, Los Angeles, 5151 State University Dr., Los Angeles, CA 90032. Submitted materials will not be returned to publishers or authors, even if they are not selected for review. Members of the AATSP who wish to be considered as reviewers should upload their information at mc.manuscriptcentral.com/hispan and send their CV to the Book/Media Review Editor at ddumitrescu@aatsp.org. Hispania will not accept unsolicited reviews and does not publish journal numbers, book notices, or reviews of works more than two years old. Due to the number of works that correspond to Hispania’s broad scope, not all requests to review specific items can be granted. We especially encourage, however, requests to review film and other media resources. An invitation to review does not guarantee publication. All reviews are evaluated by anonymous readers and publication decisions are based upon their comments and the discretion of the editors. Al pie de la Casa Blanca: Poetas hispanos de Washington, DC is a compelling collection providing a rare poetic intersection of Hispanic and North American cultures. The anthology presents works from twenty-four contemporary poets representing fourteen countries and sharing the commonality of residence in the Washington, DC area. The editors chose to focus on poets who write primarily in Spanish, are active in the Hispanic/Latino literary world of Washington, and have been recognized for their work. Al pie de la Casa Blanca offers a rich variety of themes. Loss, nostalgia, nature, love, humor, solitude—all are present in this collection. Thematic strands abound. For poetry of place, we have “Columbia Station,” “Miraflores,” “Avenidas de Nueva York,” “Las calles de Washington,” “Ciudad sin sueño (Dupont Circle),” to name only a few. Among the many poems of exile we can include “Búsqueda,” “Borderland,” “Como vino,” “Frío en la ciudad” and “Fronteras ilegales.” Mayamérica Cortez embraces her indigenous heritage while Milagros Terán is bemused by her legs, David Camero writes of mythologies old and new, and Grego Pineda praises fecundity with his one line poem “La filosofía y yo”: “Eyaculo, luego existo” (296). For Ambroggio these poems reflect a life in exile and a poetry of ‘adopción y adaptación,’ steeped in nostalgia, longing to belong yet a lamentation of loss and separation, ambivalent, pregnant with dualities, joyful in freedom while oppressed by prejudice and misunderstanding. Exile for these writers is not just geographic or political, but is also a linguistic exile in an English speaking world that compromises their heritage at its roots. One of several poems addressing this linguistic compromise is “Mi lengua está partida en dos,” in which Quique Avilés writes, “mi lengua se parte por naturaleza / por ese loco deseo nuestro de vencer, triunfar, conquistar” (91). Yet another view of linguistic duality is provided in “Si conduzco manejo” by Alberto Avendaño, poet of Spanish origen, bemused by the linguistic stew he discovered while living in Texas. “Si como loncheo, si vivo soy nice, bato, dispara o muere” (79), a reminder that the Spanish language in the United States is not a monolithic phenomenon, but rather a rich amalgam of accents in a constant dance of compromise with its English speaking surroundings. [End Page 344] Only a few problems mar this otherwise excellent collection. The editors specifically distinguish between Hispanic and Latino poets, “poetas ‘hispanos’, aquellos de procedencia hispánica en los Estados Unidos que han optado por escribir en español, y ‘latinos’, aquellos de procedencia hispánica que escriben en inglés. No privilegiamos uno sobre el otro...