Cabato Sentora (American Poets Continuum) [Paperback]

Ray Gonzalez (Author)

Book Description

Series: American Poets Continuum | Publication Date: January 1, 1998

Poems of psychological transition evoking magical realism in the tradition of Garcia Marquez.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

"The confessor/ with his metal cross," a "Woman with Seven Iguanas on Her Head" ("She is married to the Lizard Man") and the poet of this fourth collection all inhabit an apocalyptic border landscape, weighted with with foreboding Catholic iconography ("The bloody Christ on the wall is folding his hands..."), Yaqui symbolism and unrelenting poverty. Poems like "The Angels of Juarez, Mexico" and "The Poor Angel" summon a rhetoric of witness without clear hope of salvation: "I came from El Paso, from the border of angry bees/ and brown dogs who stick their torn snouts into the river./ I came from the border of twisted wire/ and pregnant women floating in the water." Gonzalez is a noted anthologist (Touching the Fire: Fifteen Poets of Today's Latino Renaissance), and the speaker of these poems collects and holds together wrenching images of his land and people?images that he remains wary of summing up, or even offering to us: "I can't speak without removing that blue throat from my body,/ can't introduce you to Llaga without asking you to remove/ your voice so I can examine it." If many of Gonzalez's metaphors are overwhelmed by the spiritual and material conditions they describe, it is not for lack of his leaving "one or two/ twigs of prayer lying on the dirt floor" of this impassioned collection.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Review

"In this new collection, Ray Gonzalez locates the driven passion of poetry within his family, his ancestors, his people and their stories' root mysteries ... CABATO SENTORA is at once a ramifying and fulfilling book." - William Heyen. "There is the voice of confinement in the pinecone, / a prism of laughter hiding in one shoulder, / mistaking the naked back for the need to run." ("There"). "Ray Gonzalez firmly opposes the Romantic and Symbolist dualism between I and the other, self and world. For Gonzalez, the landscape is not external to himself, nor is the past cut off from the present. His work, then is insistently political, suggesting responsibilities, even when its ostensible subject matter is dream or art. When Gonzalez makes his cabato, like 'the first man / who tied anything together,' it is language that he crosses with spirit." -- Forest Gander

Angelo
The Angels Of Juarez, Mexico
At The Rio Grande Near The End Of The Century
Beyond Having
Breastbone
Brown Pot
Cabato
Calling Ourselves
Calling The White Donkey
Confessional
The Cult Of The Closed Hand
Ese
Explain
The Finger Moth
Forgiveness
From The Face
The Hawk In The Yard
The Head Of Pancho Villa
The Healing Leaves
The History Of Desire: Baile Con La Talaca (dance With The Skeleton)
The History Of Desire: Burning Dreams
The History Of Desire: El Arte Ritual De La Muerte Nina (the Ritual
The History Of Desire: Ex-voto
The History Of Desire: Five Yaqui Masks (arizona State Museum)
The History Of Desire: La Casa De La Bestia (the Beast's House)
The History Of Desire: My Body Standeth Over Still
The History Of Desire: This Mother Ain't For Sale
The History Of Desire: Woman With Seven Iguanas On Her Head
The History Of Desire: Zapa At Nineteen
Llaga
Meditation At Chamberino
Mexican
My Mother's Angel
Pancho Willa Invites My Grandfather To The Revolution, Mexico, 1914
The Path Of The Dragons
'people Born In September Are Sabio (wise) Like A Tecolote (owl)'
The Poor Angel
San Antonio Marauder
Sentora
The Skin Brown
Still Life With Endings
Suddenly, I Remember The Place
There
The Turtle
Two Striped Lizards
Under The Freeway In El Paso
Unraveling In Black
Vista Across A Tree
White: Lifted White
White: The White Cars
White: The White Fountain
White: The White Guitar
White: The White Hair
White: The White Iguana
White: The White Room
White: The White Silence
White: The White Sirens
White: The White Streets
White: The White Tarantula
White: The White Tree
Without Villages
Yaqui Poems From Hidden Ancestors
-- Table of Poems from Poem Finder®

Product Details

• Paperback: 96 pages
• Publisher: BOA Editions Ltd.; 1st edition (January 1, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1880238705
• ISBN-13: 978-1880238707
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 5.9 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7.5 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,322,872 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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