Halting steps : collected and new poems / Claribel Alegría.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Alegría, Claribel.

Standardized Title:

Poems. English

Language:

English

Spanish

Genre:

Poetry.

Physical Description:

317 pages ; 22 cm

Place of Publication:

Evanston, Ill. : Curbstone Books/Northwestern University Press, 2013.

Language Note:

In English, translated from the Spanish.

Summary:

Halting Steps represents the most complete retrospective in English of Claribel Alegría's seven-decade career, collecting in one volume all of Alegría's poems from her fourteen previously published books and debuting several new poems under the title "Otherness." Alegría was born in Nicaragua during the United States occupation of that country. Alegría's family opposed the occupation and moved to El Salvador, where she grew up. Her poetry is not only lyrical and introspective but also politically engaged. Her verse has always spoken forcefully, specifically, and fearlessly to matters of social justice in her region. She strikes a universal theme, however, in giving a voice to individuals of all classes in their struggle against oppression, especially to women who must contend with a system in which men hold the power and women arc excluded. Alegría demonstrates her remarkable range with deeply personal poems, perhaps most notably in the poem cycle "Sorrow," as she moves steadily through the waves, of grief she experienced after her husbands death. In Halting Steps, both longtime admirers and those new to her work can appreciate the sustained creative power of Claribel Alegría's poems. Book jacket.

Contents:

Ring of Silence (1948)

High Are the Pillars 5

To My Mother 6

Let Me Come In 7

Bold Wind 8

A Spring 9

Come See the Rain 10

Love Sonnets (1953)

1 13

2 14

3 15

4 16

5 17

6 18

7 19

8 20

9 21

Elegy for a Sailor 22

Sundays Monologue 23

Aquarius (1955)

Aquarius 29

Midpoint of the Journey 30

This Mirror Understands Me 31

Walking This Afternoon 32

Letter to Time 33

Adaptations 36

I Was Born Here Too 38

Personal Profile 39

Guest of My Time (1960)

Home Movie 43

Journey's Eve 46

Self-Portrait 48

Multiple Monologue 50

My Neighborhood 56

Epitaph for a Dog 58

Apprenticeship 59

The Search 62

Dialogue 64

Solitary Confinement 66

Inner Minute 68

One Way (1965)

Pirouettes in a Room of Mirrors 73

Though It Only Lasts an Instant 75

The Grandfather 77

Its Growing Late, Doctor 80

Morning Thoughts 83

Documentary 85

I.O.U. (1972)

The Almonds Are Blooming 91

Dans le Metro 92

Long-Distance Communication 94

The American Way of Death 97

Suddenly 99

The Streams 100

My Paradise in Mallorca 105

Elegy for Duncan 107

Of Watermelons and Bridges 109

I Have Just Been Born 111

Santa Ana in the Dark 112

Cradle Song for Duncan James 117

Roots (1973-1975)

It Is Closing This Door That I Fear 123

Autumn 124

I Am Root 125

Today I Was Born with the Dawn 127

I Am an Ordinary Skin 129

And I Dreamt I Was a Tree 130

Beneath the Cold Skin of the Whale 132

Root Mother 135

I Would Rather Go Back to My Spiders 142

Dreams Know Not Where to Run 144

I Survive (1978)

I Thought I Would Spend My Time 147

Frontiers 148

Everything Is Normal in Our Courtyard 149

Dream 152

I Bring Flowers Do'tor 153

Love 158

For Long Years 159

Sorrow 166

Time 171

Little Cambray Tamales 172

At Night 173

Evasion 174

I Am a Mirror 175

We Were Three 177

Flowers from the Volcano 179

I Survive 182

Luisa in Realityland (1983)

I Like Strokin' Leaves 185

Rainy Day 186

Disillusionment 187

My City 188

Luisa's Paintings 190

I Also Like That Love 192

Don't Think of Tomorrow 193

Roque's Via Cruris 194

Farabundo Martí 195

The Volcanoes 196

Eunice Avilés 198

Salarrué 200

And This River Poem (1988)

Mater Potens 203

Death Leap 205

From the Bridge 208

Strange Guest 212

I Want to Be Everything in Love 213

The Woman of the Sumpul River 214

Snapshots 219

Fugues (1993)

Savoir Faire 223

Ars Poetica 224

Letter to an Exile 225

Malinche 227

Hecate 229

Packing My Bags 230

Thresholds (1997)

I The Ceiba 235

II The River 239

III Queen Bee 241

IV Merlin 244

V The Tower 247

VI Chalice and Fount 250

VII The Coyote 253

VIII The Crows Eye 257

IX The Butterfly 262

Saudade (2000)

Searching for You 265

Saudade 266

Give Me Your Hand 267

What Will Our Meeting Be Like? 268

Artemis 269

Orpheus 270

Unfinished Rite 271

It Cannot 272

Casting Off (2002)

Medea 275

Francesca's Lament 277

It's Tune Now to Give Up 278

Lilith 279

My Cat 280

I Must Let You Go 281

Myths and Misdemeanors (2008)

Mary Magdalene 285

Gaia's Monologue 286

Phaeton (Son of the Sun) 288

Prometheus Bound 291

Phaedra 294

Judas 296

Judith 297

Isis 299

Otherness (2011)

Sailing Away 303

Daphne 304

Selene 305

Sister Death 310

Testament 311.

ISBN:

9780810129191

0810129191

OCLC:

814455478