Dec 17, 2009

Colibri | Espada's Poem as a Political Poem

In this essay, Semansky considers
Espada’s poem as a political poem.

Espada is a political poet at a time when the relevance of both politics and poetry has become significantly challenged in the American popular imagination. He is largely successful not because his politics agree with the poetry-reading public, but because they enliven the art. Espada does not use poetry as a vehicle for his politics; rather, he fuses the two to create work that various readers can appreciate, whether they agree with his political positions or not. “Colibrí” is an example of such a fusion.

Espada titles the poem with the name Spanish colonizers gave to the...