Customer Reviews

City Of a Hundred Fires (Pitt Poetry Series)

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My tastes in poetry are usually kind of old fashioned. I was at the library to get a volume of Blake's poetry. The book I wanted wasn't on the shelf but Richard Blanco's was. I'm not sure what made me sit down and read it, what made me check it out from library, but I did. Blanco writes about a place and people I know little about, and yet his attention to place and relationships of all kind made me feel grounded in a real world, not an exoticized one. And I must admit, reading these poems made me think better of contemporary poetry.

Blanco's recent book, City of a Hundred Fires, designs to map the heart caught in a watery span between two nations-- the conflict and nostalgia of a Cuban growing up in Miami, and what that means to him and the people that surround him. While the poems are focused on a hyphenated experience (Cuban-American), Blanco manages to transcend this focus with writing that is concise and imagistic, honest and intelligent-- a style that allows the reader entry into the the poems, into the two hearts that give this book its beat. These poems take the reader from the shore of 1950's Cuba to the poet's own shaving mirror, from the imagined genesis of Cuba to the poet's childhood memories and desires. These poems ring true as the space between his two countries, between what's in the heart and how to write it down. Blanco is going to be a poet to watch!

Richard Blanco's "City of a Hundred Fires" is rich and ripe with images and emotion. Voicing the experience of many hyphenated Cuban-Americans, Blanco captures the beauty of the every day, the pain of a displaced community of exiles and their strength and determination in tackling a new country. He celebrates their resilience and mourns their losses -- emotional, psychological and physical. Referring to Cienfuegos, Cuba, "City of 100 Fires" is a beautiful and moving collection of poems that I have shared with many and will always keep close to my heart.

I read one poem of Richard Blanco's on the Internet and was intrigued. I bought this book based on one poem and have never regretted it. This book is incredibly satisfying to me as reader and writer of poetry. I have read it more than once and continually return to it for its love of language, culture and detail. Each poem is beautifully written and together as a collection, it only gets better. Would highly recommend.

"City of A Hundred Fires" is a strong, but predictable first book. Several of the key narrative poems in this collection seem more sugary than they are honest. One poem, or short sequence of poems, "What Las Palmas Mean" reveal the type of juvenile naivete and seemingly contrived sentimentality that Mr. Blanco's volume exudes as a whole. The title poem "City of A Hundred Fires" is moving, but not enough to make the collection resound with the profound poetic maturity and accuity that a theme such as "exile" and a people's dislocation demands. David Mura, another contemporary poet, is a good example of someone who has treated exile and an impersonal hurt in a ingenius way. His volume "After We Lost Our Way" has some of Blanco's lush rhythms and exotic imagery, but is balanced by a profound sense of honesty and dignity. This is what "City of A Hundred Fires" lacks. Their are no explorations into the psyche of the people, even the narrator's reflections seem to be caught up with the images and not with describing the hurt and pride of the people it claims to represent. Good first book, needs a little more emotional grit. A lot of fire, little heat.

I have both read Richard Blanco's work and heard him recite it. Upon considering the obvious talent showcased in his, "City of a Hundred Fires," I am left asking myself why its author did not use his skill to come to his own identity! As moving as these poems are, they are just a testament to the pathetic nostalgia that keeps talents in Miami out of the reach of the genuine and universal.