El feliz ingenio neomexicano: Felipe M. Chacón and Poesía y prosa by Anna M. Nogar and A. Gabriel Meléndez

Abstract

Reviewed by: El feliz ingenio neomexicano: Felipe M. Chacón and Poesía y prosa by Anna M. Nogar and A. Gabriel Meléndez Juan M. Gallegos Anna M. Nogar and A. Gabriel Meléndez, El feliz ingenio neomexicano: Felipe M. Chacón and Poesía y prosa. Albuquerque: U of New Mexico P, 2021. 445 pp. Hardcover, $75; e-book, $75. In El feliz ingenio neomexicano: Felipe M. Chacón and Poesía y prosa editors and translators Anna M. Nogar and A. Gabriel Meléndez recover the written works of noted neomexicano author, publisher, and journalist Felipe M. Chacón. Chacón, a member of the esteemed New Mexican Chacón family, carved out a historical presence during New Mexico’s Territorial Period and the early years of New Mexico’s statehood through his contributions as a journalist, including his time as editor at Spanish-language newspapers like La Voz del Pueblo. A recent addition to the Pasó Por Aquí series published by the University of New Mexico Press, which has spearheaded efforts to recover New Mexico’s unrecognized literary heritage, the book recognizes the work produced by a member of a historically unaccounted for population whose literary production has been relegated to largely unexplored archives. [End Page 82] The book is organized into five sections: both editors’ introductions, an explanation of the translation process, the Spanish transcription of Chacón’s writing, the English translation, and an index. Each scholar wrote separate introductions to the book, with Nogar “examining the aesthetic and creative dimensions” of Chacón’s writing and Meléndez “adding to the sociohistorical understanding of Chacón as an author and of Poesía y prosa as a publication” (5). The appendix is a short one with images of Chacón, selected published poems, and the cover of the original edition of Poesía y prosa. At the core of Nogar and Meléndez’s book is Chacón’s Poesía y prosa. Chacón’s book is divided into four primary parts: a prologue written by New Mexico historian Benjamin Read, and three chapters of poems and prose. While touching on a number of topics and providing a short biography, Read defends Chacón’s decision to write in Spanish. One poem in particular, “In Mexico,” written in Spanish and English, is of particular interest to both Read and Nogar, who argue that Chacón uses his bilingualism to speak to a bilingual population and “to critique Anglo incursion into New Mexico, to comment about the imposition of social conditions and political dynamics onto nuevomexicanos, and to poke fun at those who would demand that nuevomexicanos speak English, while they themselves do not learn the dominant community language, Spanish” (Nogar 31–32). Poetry serves as the dominant genre with sixty of seventy-one selections being original poetry. The poetry’s content runs a gamut of topics, including the personal and the political. Poems like “A Mi Hija, Herminia” and “A Mi Hijo, Felipe” capture a more intimate side of Chacón, while his political poems like “To the Homeland” reflect topics such as his pride in being an American. A short story, a novellete, and a selection that is perhaps a piece of creative nonfiction are the only examples of Chacón’s prose in the book. In addition to his original poetry, Chacón includes translations of poets like Byron, Dryden, Longfellow, and his uncle, Pedro C. Chacón. The book can be seen as a companion to or a continuation of Meléndez and Francisco Lomelís’s work in The Writings of Eusebio Chacón (2012), which collects the writing of Chacón’s cousin, Eusebio [End Page 83] Chacón. Considering the similarities between the two books, this book is highly recommended for those who are familiar with Meléndez and Lomelís’s work. Overall, El feliz ingenion neomexicano opens new avenues of research for those studying the historical literacies of neomexicanos, the Southwest, and Latinxs, whether these literacies are framed by sociocultural, historical, or literary frameworks. It fills an enormous gap in Latinx literary studies, and in many ways serves as a call for the recovery...