Formal Matters in Contemporary Latino Poetry by Aldama, Frederick Luis (review)

Abstract

Aldama, Frederick Luis. Formal Matters in Contemporary Poetry. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013. 207 pp. By addressing a central historical flaw in U.S. literary studies--the lack of attention the analysis of (poetic) form--Frederick Luis Aldama's new book offers a provocative approach contemporary poetry. It has an introductory chapter, four individual studies of the works of Rafael Campo, C. Dale Young, Julia Alvarez, and Rhina P. Espaillat, and also an appendix with four interviews with them. Aldama proposes take the and their poetry seriously and pay attention the different degrees in which their 'will style' succeeds in creating--or not--a unity of affect (x). In his introduction, entitled On Matters of Form in Contemporary Poetry, Aldama argues that the works of Campo, Young, Alvarez, and Espaillat, who come of age as in the 1990s, can be representative of a Latino New Formalism, a orientation that connects with a more general trend in U.S. poetry that has been using formal verse and has focused on reshaping traditional forms since the 1980s (14). For Latina/o authors in general, the use of formal verse has historically been considered, as Aldama describes, akin selling out Anglo patriarchal imperialism (16). Campo, Young, Alvarez, and Espaillat reject this idea and focus on the exploration and rethinking of traditional poetic forms without discarding the inclusion of themes and cultural elements that are related their particular Latina/o identity. The most relevant part of Aldama's introductory essay is his critical survey of individual works by some 30 contemporary Latina/o poets, such as Uraoyan Noel, Monica de la Torre, Scott Inguito, Rodrigo Toscano, Ray Gonzalez, Naomi Ayala, Rosa Alcala, Emmy Perez, and Araceli Girmay, among many others. And yet, some important authors are clearly missing: Lorna Dee Cervantes, Rigoberto Gonzalez, Alicia Gaspar de Alba, Laurie Ann Guerrero, and Joseph Delgado are just a few that come mind. Aldama's four chapters on Campo, Young, Alvarez, and Espaillat, as well as the subsequent interviews, aim to expand the scholarship on poetry by teasing out and solidifying the formalist poetics of two major gay physician poets, and two Latina women poets (xi). Each chapter has a biographical introduction, a review of critical studies of each poet's work, a section that elucidates their poetics, and a comprehensive analysis of their poetry collections, including close readings of selected poems. The comparative analysis of the authors normally appears in the sections devoted their particular poetics. …