Exile (Masterplots II: Poetry, Revised Edition)
At a glance:
- Author: Julia Alvarez
- First Published: 1995
- Type of Work: Narrative
- Genres: Poetry, Narrative poetry
- Subjects: Children, New York, North America or North Americans, Northeast, U.S., United States or Americans, Caribbean, New York City, Exile or expatriates, Immigration or emigration, Latinos, Laughter
The Poem
Julia Alvarez’s “Exile” consists of seventeen four-line stanzas that convey a sense of shared recollection between the poem’s persona and her father. As she reflects upon the family’s abrupt departure from their Dominican homeland and their subsequent cultural adjustment to New York City, she reveals that, as the poem’s title suggests, this uprooting creates a sense of exile: a lamentation for those places and things left behind and a confused uncertainty about the new. The chronological sequencing of events gives the poem an autobiographical tone, but,...
[The entire page is 1526 words long]
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