So Often the Pitcher Goes to Water Until It Breaks: POEMS

by Rigoberto Gonzalez

Overview

An astonishing new talent, Rigoberto González writes with a clarity of the senses that pulls the reader into a marvelous and unfamiliar world. The sidewalk preacher, the umbrella salesman, the nurse on the graveyard shift, the professional mourner— all allow González a clandestine glimpse of their lives. Crackling with the dry electricity of the desert and flashing with the brilliant colors of Mexico, González's poems are rooted in the fertile soil beneath poverty's dust, the border's violence, and longing's desolation.
 

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780252067983
Publisher:	University of Illinois Press
Publication date:	05/01/1999
Series:	National Poetry Series
Pages:	112
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 8.25(h) x 0.30(d)

About the Author

Rigoberto Gonzalez was born in Bakersfield, California, and raised in Michoacan, Mexico, the son and grandson of migrant farm workers. Educated at the University of California at Riverside and at Davis and at Arizona State University, he was awarded a University Award from the Academy of American Poets.
 

Editorial Reviews

A poetic 'remembrance of things past,' a rare combination of beauty and craft.

Ai

It may be difficult for most readers to take poems like "Death of the Farm Workers' Cat" or "The Exhibitionist Umbrella Salesman" at face value. But in this debut, selected by Ai for the National Poetry Series, Gonz lez works to tell such stories, and his own, without embellishment, like the deadpan, sinister fables and parables of Ai's own work. Steadily lovely lines function like directorless cinematography "Catarina shakes the cracker crumbs off/ the lime dress with the collar crawling up the throat/ in Catholic schoolgirl fashion./ The torn hem above the knees won't show." Most of the poems are as clear and cohesive as the above stanza, and the stories they tell are rich with the colors, smells and exigencies of daily life in differing corners of the Mexican diaspora. Poems like "Perla at the Mexican Border Assembly Line of Dolls," "Planidera: Professional Mourner for Hire" and "Rosario's Graveyard Shift at JFK Memorial Hospital" show a particular interest in what often remains women's work. Others focus on the poet's childhood memories of Catholicism, nascent sexuality and literacy. Death--"that horrible truth spread/ like honey"--is never far away, foreboding and talismanic. Some of the poems' characters, purposefully deprived of depth, personality or self-expression, come off as social realist caricatures. But at their best, Gonz lez pushes the poems forward with grim authority--"Darkness can be so maternal:/ blood spots tip down like baby heads"--and startling beauty: "We value the chrysalis of bone/, the blue shell that brings down the sky within our reach." (June) Copyright 1999 Cahners Business Information.

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

Selected by Ai for this year's National Poetry Series, González's first volume of mostly straightforward narratives with their somber ironies and death-drenched imagery rely on a multicultural appeal for their uniqueness. As in the awkward title, he's translating his Mexican heritage for readers who are meant to gasp at the poverty and superstitions of his ancestors south of the border. A number of portraits illustrate the sad Mexican lives: "Planidera," a professional mourner, saves the tears from her husband's death for her job; in "Sentimental Undertakers," the local coffin-maker saves old, worthless pesos to place with the dead, a folk custom; "The Exhibitionist Umbrella Salesman" doesn't understand the townfolk's reluctance to buy his product, which they fear will jinx the weather; and, best of all, "Craft of the Candlestick Maker" nicely describes his devotional art. Many of these poems are haunted by the spirits of the dead, and the masks, dolls, and mannequins throughout the volume all focus on the departed. González blends native lore with Catholic belief (not much of it doctrinal), and in his best work, echoes the repetitions of biblical verse. Many poems about his grandparents are affectionate memories of reading Spanish together, or looking at the stars. González, however, also weighs down his volume with social commentary implicit in portraits of exploited border workers, Mexican-Americans who endure prejudice, a migrant worker who picks grapes for the wine of the affluent, and a repairman up north who commits suicide (because he feels so lost and lonely). In the title sequence, González flexes his magical-realist muscle in a poem in fourvoices about sexual jealousy and revenge. A clear and focused debut, but one that's also too predictable as a result.

Kirkus Reviews