Unaccompanied and The Verging Cities

Reading both of these books together was an experience in and of itself. Both of these poetry collections dealt with a Latinx experience of immigration and both came from such personal spaces. I have to talk about one and then the other, in order to truly give the right amount of space I believe each deserve.

            The Verging Cities evoked a lot of core concepts from this class. In it, I saw the poet give us many land based descriptions that she found on herself, showing the reader the true connection between land and human, and how thin those barriers and boundaries are. I found myself often chocking up and tearing at the dedication to her friend (who was more than a friend but Friendship is powerful and I believe that connection was between them too) and lover, who had gone missing, probably captured in some sense of the word and taken back to Mexico, or at least the poet hopes. And through, even the first poem in the book, the reader hopes so too!

            This collection specifically ignited me in a way, to get this vision of the poet and her longing and her dedication to the longing but also for an answer. In one poem, the poet fears her lover is dead and imagines carrying his body across the border, his weight for an answer, still no answer and the poet breathes. There is so much power in this collection that I was simply overwhelmed. I really enjoyed the way the poet structured some of her poems, I think of the poem that she turned into acts in a play, and how wonderfully worded and poignant they were.

            Though this collection was written in 2015, things have gotten worse, and I fear more and more and find myself wanting to do more and more to speak up and fight back about this issue.

            Unaccompanied carried a different energy and feel for me. The poet Javier Zamora has shed a beautiful light on his experience coming across the border. About the attempts and about the dangerous barriers blocking his way over. I enjoyed reading this politically charged collection because Zamora did such a good job of bringing out his own experiences and centering them. I think about the poem Cry Baby and how he ties in stories of his mother and father meeting each other. And the horrible gang violence that has made his upbringing fraught with challenges.

            One image that sticks out to me from the poetry collection are one man’s brown arms shielding another in the desert from la migra, from danger, from being found out. There is a quickness I can feel through the details, a strangled love, an action of putting your wishes, dreams and hopes in the essence of another person. An act of love by far. June 10^th also strung a chord with me, the day Javier officially came to San Francisco. After crossing the border so many times.