Sailing through Cassiopeia by Dan Gerber

Abstract

Vidaluz Meneses Flame in the Air: Bilingual Poetry Edition Maria Roof, tr. Casasola Editores Flame in the Air is a treasure among translations today. For the first time, Vidaluz Meneses, well recognized in Central America for her works of poetry and social justice, is presented in a bilingual edition including translated interviews with the poet about her life. Showing that beauty survives chaos, Flame in the Air is a long-awaited collection that shows the faith and dedication that made Meneses a distinct figure in Nicaragua’s troubled past. Herman Koch Summer House with Swimming Pool Sam Garrett, tr. Hogarth This gripping novel follows the medical practice of Marc Schlosser, a doctor unable to truly empathize with his celebrity patients. He suddenly becomes emotionally involved when a famous patient dies and his career is jeopardized. Much like his previous novels, Koch’s newer work provides an entertainingly skeptical view of the upper middle class. Nota Bene grit, the spirit of the migrant farmworker , the buzz of neighborhood platicas, the dream tales of ancestors, and, as always, with language imbued with the salt of the earth. In “The Latin Girl Speaks of Rivers ,” Cervantes channels Langston Hughes when she writes the story of Woman. She writes of trauma and of writing for healing when she says, “When I wrote about the serpentine / river I was really writing about / a rape.” She goes on to meditate, “I was writing my heart out. I was / writing myself back in.” These are poems made in the image of the divine. They are smokeembraced little ofrendas, offerings to those who have walked before us as well as to the living stories, the rape and oppression of a people and then the birth/rebirth of life. Cervantes is an iconic Chicana/Native American poet, and her literary work was a pivotal voice in the rise and sustainability of the Chicano and Indigenous literary movements. Both artist and activist, her current writing is still necessary, politically charged, and absolutely relevant. In her poem “A Chicano Poem— for Librotraficante,” Cervantes responds to the Arizona Education Department’s ban of Mexican American literature and other ethnic books in the public classroom. Cervantes declares, “They burned the sacred codices and the molten goddesses rose anew in their flames.” She will not allow the reader to forget past transgressions put upon people of color; therefore, she scribes with the tenacity of a five-alarm fire against current attempted oppressions. And it is in the language of the mestizaje that she sings the loudest. Her voice is ever-changing, forever in between, shifting like patterns in the sand yet always ringing with the clear bell of truth. Her poems are the dialectical celebration of the colloquial word, and they continue to validate multilingualism as an intersection of culture within the American poetic landscape. In Sueño, the reader will find that Cervantes’s penchant for lyricism is still finely intact. It is a type of subconscious drumbeat for the reader, and the poems beg to be read aloud. Who wouldn’t want to recite, “He could make love like a 4-barrel / carburetor on a ’72 Chevy / Camaro. Man, he could go. Pumping up / the pistons, discharging with a growl” from the aptly titled “The 4-Barrel Carburetor on a ’72 Chevy Camaro”? Cervantes is the original bad-girl poeta. She is a spell-casting codeswitcher who asserts her indigenity in verse. A voice for many, she is both payasa (clown) and queen bee. Sueño, her fifth major collection of poetry, is a triumphant manifestation of all these gifts, a wonderfully charged volume that makes the reader think and, most importantly, feel. Jessica Helen Lopez University of New Mexico Dan Gerber. Sailing through Cassiopeia. Port Townsend, Washington. Copper Canyon. 2012. isbn 9781556594083 Dan Gerber’s eighth book of poetry is concerned mainly with relationships , memories, and a desire for continuance—important, but common enough themes. Where Gerber really starts to differentiate is in his approach: he frequently focuses with sustained intensity on something fairly ordinary or easily observed until it leads him to the unseen or not so easily discerned. He is really a metaphysical poet in physical garb. For example...