Indie review of Texan’s poetry collection<\/p>\n

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Infused with love and memories, Awaken!<\/span><\/i><\/span><\/span> uncovers joy in moments of sorrow. The poet Sylvia S\u00e1<\/span>nchez Garza dedicates this collection to her parents; her mother Elida Reyna S\u00e1nchez died in 2019 and her father Joe V. S\u00e1nchez in 2021. Grief-stricken, the author reveals that words overflow her mind, comparing them to water pouring from a faucet with broken handles. But she remains silent, knowing that eventually her \u201clost words\/Will ignite and explode,\u201d as they do in her poem \u201cWords,\u201d an expression of her emotional pain.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

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\u201cClouds\u201d is a metaphor for those she misses. She watches them morph and move across the sky. \u201cThey grow, create themselves \/and reunite with each other for strength.\u201d Heartbroken, she acknowledges the anniversary of her mother\u2019s death in \u201cSeptember\u201d but feels her presence in the natural world and her grandbaby\u2019s \u201csilky-smooth skin.\u201d<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

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\u201cUnderstand\u201d is an internal conversation about \u201csacred shells,\u201d bodies left behind at death. S\u00e1nchez Garza doesn\u2019t understand those who look for loved ones in open coffins. She believes lives continue in the depths of souls, \u201cwhere no one else can go.\u201d She feels their spirits in the natural world, \u201c\u2026in the red, candescent cardinal \/Perching on the windowsill.\u201d <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

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Her love for nature also comes through in the couplets of \u201cAnacahuita<\/i>\u201d when she converses with an olive tree that she hopes will survive a freeze and in \u201cLa Flor<\/i>\u201d when she expresses gratitude for every moment. Her ode to \u201cMr. Sunshine\u201d is set on a stormy day, but she encourages him to sleep in. <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

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\u201cLa Luna,\u201d about the moon, is another of her lyrical poems with s<\/i> and w<\/i> alliterations as soothing as lullabies. The first four couplets are lovely, but the rest of the poem detours to focus on a blue heron. In \u201cHaibun: Meditating in the Backyard,\u201d the poet combines a prose poem with a haiku. Sitting on a bench, sipping iced tea, she again reflects on egrets in South Texas:<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

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Pure, angelic, birds,<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

majestic at water\u2019s edge\u2026<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

croaking a good night.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

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The powerful \u201cDelusional Dream\u201d is a sestina about the Covid crisis. Sestinas are a challenging poetic form with six stanzas of six lines and a final triplet. All stanzas have the same six words at the line-ends, but in different sequences. The six are used again in the following, closing three-line envoi:<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Oh, trees and flowers and birds take pause.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

The sky is a misty daze in your eyes, bones, and cells.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Try to bury the truth? The sun will cry as we peek.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

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Part of the fun of this form is that homophones can be used, so that \u201cpause\u201d can become \u201cpaws\u201d in another stanza. \u201cPeek\u201d can become \u201cpeak\u201d or \u201cpique,\u201d \u201ccells\u201d \u201csells,\u201d and \u201cdaze\u201d \u201cdays.\u201d<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

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The writer revisits Covid in \u201cPestilent Pest.\u201d Here she uses second person to address the disease as a female bully.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

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S\u00e1nchez Garza awakens readers to the history and politics of \u201cLife on the Rio Grande.\u201d This poem begins and ends with the word \u201chome.\u201d S\u00e1nchez Garza describes it as \u201can invisible place \/where people you love \/are forever with you,\u201d not divided into two separate worlds, a familiar longing expressed in her writing. <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

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\u201cLabores<\/span><\/i><\/span>\u201d praises migrant workers, thousands of miles from home, \u201cpicking all day long \/only to be left behind \/when trying to get ahead.\u201d <\/i><\/span><\/span>She continues to examine their plight in \u201cPlease\u201d which expresses her desire for Mexico and the U.S. to live as loving neighbors with blended cultures rather than to create barriers and separate innocent children from their parents.<\/span><\/p>\n

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Told in first person point-of-view, \u201cSpiritless Stone\u201d refers to monuments of heroes, disgraced as historic secrets unfold. A statue encourages others to, \u201ccut me, smash me, destroy me\u2014bloodless and unheroic.\u201d The writer also speaks to George Floyd in \u201cSoar with the Angels,\u201d promising him that people will never forget the knee to his neck.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

S\u00e1<\/span>nchez Garza<\/span> <\/i>writes more than half of her twenty-five poems in couplets. In the first one, a flamboyant mosquito speaks directly to the humans who swat him. The insect begs for his life in \u201cDance.\u201d \u201cWAIT! \/Can\u2019t you let us be? \/If you had \/But three weeks, \/Wouldn\u2019t you \/Dance? \/Without worrying about getting smacked \/By yesterday\u2019s news.\u201d<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

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\u201cPurple Pi\u00f1ata Pieces\u201d is another fun one. She again uses alliteration and direct address as she describes partygoers, \u201cstriking with fierce force\u201d and the hailstorm of sweet morsels that results.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

 \u201cRaspas<\/i>\u201d (snow cones), about other treats, suggests her disappointment that none today are as sweet as the ones she remembers from childhood.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

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S\u00e1nchez Garza ends her anthology with \u201cLa Chancla,\u201d<\/i> a surprising poem about someone who wants to deprive her of a dream to \u201csee my world, \/to hold it in my arms \/as I stare at its eyes \/while the world smiles \/and kisses my cheek.\u201d <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

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In spite of her naysayer, she has achieved those wishes in Awaken!<\/span><\/i><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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