Jailbreak of sparrows : poems / Martín Espada.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Espada, Martín, 1957- author.

Standardized Title:

Jailbreak of sparrows (Compilation)

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

American poetry--20th century.

American poetry.

Hispanic Americans--Poetry.

Hispanic Americans.

Puerto Ricans--Poetry.

Puerto Ricans.

Genre:

poetry.

Poetry.

Physical Description:

114 pages ; 24 cm

Edition:

First hardcover edition.

Place of Publication:

New York, NY : Alfred A. Knopf, 2025.

Summary:

"The poems in Jailbreak of Sparrows reveal the ways in which the ordinary becomes monumental: family portraits, politically charged reports, and tributes to the unsung. Espada's focus ranges from the bombardment of his family's hometown in Puerto Rico amid an anti-colonial uprising to the murder of a Mexican man by police in California, from the poet's adolescent brawl on a basketball court over martyred baseball hero Roberto Clemente to his unorthodox methods of representing undocumented migrants as a tenant lawyer. We also encounter "love songs" to the poet's wife from a series of unexpected voices: a bat with vertigo, the polar bear mascot for a minor league ballclub, a disembodied head in a jar."-- Provided by publisher.

Contents:

I. Big bird died for your sins. Jailbreak of sparrows

My father's practice book

Look at this

The monster in the lake

Big bird died for your sins

The lights that burn in the house of many rooms

My mother sings an encore

The bastard son of King Levinsky

El Tiante spins like a stop sign in a hurricane

A dream of drunks outsmarting me

Better than stealing a necklace of bullets

Moderation

A busload of screaming children

The critic's tongue did not sparkle with the diamond stickpin of wit

II. The city wears a coat to bed. Guadalupe's first-year law school tumbao

The city wears a coat to bed

Your card is the king of rats

He could sing, but he couldn't fly

The janitor who swept where there was no dust

Talking to the horses in the dark

Gonzo

Banquo's ghost in Paterson

Isabela's red dress flutters away

On Friday, we will wear blue

III. Love song of the disembodied head in a jar. Love song of the moa

Love song of the bat with vertigo

Love song of the one-eyed fish

Love song of the polar bear mascot at McCoy Stadium in Pawtucket, Rhode Island

Love song of the atheist marionette

Love song of the plátanos maduros

Love song of Frankenstein's insomniac monster

Love song of the disembodied head in a jar

I must be the steamship 'Morro Castle'

My beloved the unbeliever

My beloved the blasphemer causes a scuffle at the bar

Award ceremony nightmare with Swedish meatballs

IV. Wake up, Mario. Florencia, again and again

Insult

The fireflies of Belmont Avenue

My Debs, my Eugene

The Puerto Rican with the Bolshevik name

The last words of Hurricane Hi

Officer Mark Dial, who shot Eddie Irizarry, will be fired for insubordination

Wake up, Mario, The faces we envision in the scrapbook of the dead

The snake

Breve pausa

The iguanas skitter through the cemetery by the sea.

Notes:

"A Borzoi book" --verso

ISBN:

9780593537121

0593537122

OCLC:

1425247518