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Colibri | Introduction

“Colibrí” first appeared in the Americas Review and is included in Martín Espada’s bilingual second collection Rebellion Is the Circle of a Lover’s Hands, published in 1990. Espada won the 1989 PEN/Revson Award and the Paterson Poetry Prize for the book. Like his other collections, Rebellion Is the Circle of a Lover’s Hands gives voice to oppressed peoples, particularly Latinos, and demonstrates a historical awareness of the roots of oppression. Written in four short free-verse stanzas, “Colibrí,” which means hummingbird, addresses the colonization by the Spanish of the Taino, the native people who inhabit what is now called Puerto Rico. Setting the poem in Jayuya, a city founded in 1883 and the place of a 1950 uprising, Espada uses crisp imagery and an extended metaphor to connect past to present and to evoke sympathy for the Taino. Espada’s father is Puerto Rican and many of his poems address the island’s history and its fight for independence.

This poem is a good example of Espada’s ability to politicize his subject matter without sounding strident or condescending. He is able to do this by showing rather than telling readers about the Taino’s situation. By focusing on the ways in which the Spanish conquered the Taino using language as well as guns, Espada universalizes the Taino’s plight, suggesting that oppressed peoples throughout history have endured similar tribulations. The image of hands occurs in poems throughout the collection, particularly the hands of working-class people such as janitors and secretaries.

Colibri Summary

First Stanza
“Colibrí” is set in Puerto Rico in the city of Jayuya. The city’s name is derived from local Indian Chief Hayuya. Jayuya is tucked into the northern border of Toro Negro Forest Reserve and commands breathtaking views extending to the Atlantic and the Caribbean. Sometimes natives refer to it as “La Capital Indigena,” to signify its large population of Taino.

Espada first compares the scattering of the lizards to the way that “green canoes” scattered “before the invader.” This is a historical allusion to the 1493 Spanish invasion of the island, which natives called Borinquen.

“Iron and words” refer to guns and language, two of the primary tools the conquerors used to subjugate people. The Spanish named the native Arawak Indians Taino. When Espada writes that the Taino “took life / from the plátanos in the trees,” he is describing how this banana-like fruit sustained them. The fruits resemble “multiple green fingers” in their shape and size. The rock carvings refer to the Taino written language, which was... » Complete Colibri Summary