By Dylan Hackett, Staff Writer

iterature truly came alive at the
L= Westminster campus last

Wednesday, as famed Brooklyn-
born Puerto Rican poet Martin Espada
read some of his work to a small
gathering of staff and students.
Espada’s gruff but gentle voice gave his
poetry spirit and passionate vibrancy

‘as he delivered poems from three

of his works: Alabanza (2003), the
Pulitzer Prize-nominated The Republic
of Poetry (2006), and his latest, The
Trouble Ball (2011). His poems
reflected his growth from a boy born
to the housing projects of Brooklyn
who trained to become a lawyer, to
his current life as a poet and professor
at the University of Massachusetts
Amherst.

It was his first time in Vancouver,
coming to speak this weekend at the
Vancouver 125 Poetry Conference
and the Vancouver International
Writers Festival commemorating the
125" anniversary of the city. Despite

8

his commanding presence, Espada
was not without a sense of humour.
His acerbic wit withstanding jetlag,
Espada delivered a poem about a
forced love affair with cockroaches,
appropriately titled “My Cockroach
Lover.” Caressing his steel wool-like
beard, he read: “One night I dreamed/
a giant roach/ leaned over me, /
brushing my face/ with kind antennae/
and whispered, ‘I love you.’/ I awoke
slapping myself.”

Describing himself as a “poet
advocate,” Espada’s Brooklyn
background inspired him to write many
pieces about the working class and
poems with political undertones. One
of these pieces, “Alabanza: In Praise of
Local 100,” is an ode to the immigrant
workers who died in the World Trade
Centre on 9/11: “Praise the great
windows where immigrants from the
kitchen/ could squint and almost see
their world, hear the chant of nations: /
Equador, Mexico, Republica Dominica,
| Haiti, Yemen, Ghana, Bangladesh.”
Espada read to the rapt audience.

He then described his first visit
to his father’s homeland of Puerto
Rico as a child; “I had never seen such
a beautiful place in my life. There
is nothing like seeing it for the first
time.” He captured the essence of his
childhood visit in the poem “Coca
Cola and Coco Frio”: “The boy tilted
the green shell overhead/ and drooled
coconut milk down his chin; / suddenly,
Puerto Rico was not Coca-Cola/ or
Brooklyn, and neither was he.”

Espada is a bilingual poet who
writes many of his pieces in Spanish
and English, oftentimes in the same
poem, as he explains “The two
languages co-exist in my mind and
influence in subtle ways. I enjoy
bouncing the two languages off each
other the way they bounce in my head.”

With his poetry career spanning
thirty years, Espada has been published
in fifteen different languages, including
Thai, Hindi, Arabic, and Turkish. “I’m
published in Turkish. Why? Because I
have an assertive translator in Turkey,”
said Espada, explaining the realities

 

of the publishing world of poetry.
“Translators are the unsung heroes of
poetry. They will sometimes fight to the
death over one word.”

When asked about truths in poems,
Espada replied, “There’s always poetic
license, whether you realize it or not—
it’s a function of memory.”

Espada had command over his
works and the audience that night, and
provided exemplary advice for young
poets: “Because of the nature of my
life I often write in transit,” he told the
room. “Poetry is not something that
happens on Mount Olympus.”

Be sure to attend this week’s
Literature Alive event, featuring writer
and cartoonist Sarah Leavitt.

What: Literature Alive with Sarah Leavitt
Where: Douglas College, New West
campus, Room 2203

When: Wednesday October 26 @ 12 p.m.
Cost: Free!