Sonnets from the Puerto Rican

By Jack Agueros

Book Overview

Poetry. Latin American Studies. Jack Agueros is a poet, playwright, and fiction writer born in East Harlem who has remained closely involved with New York's Puerto Rican community. Agueros' varied writing career has reached from TV's Sesame Street to experimental Off-Off Broadway drama. His translations have been performed at the New York Public Theater and his poems and stories have appeared in Nuestro, Revista Chicana-Riquena, Hanging Loose, The Portable Lower East Side, and many other publications. His first collection of poetry, CORRESPONDING BETWEEN THE STONEHAULERS, was published by Hanging Loose in 1991 followed by his first collection of short fiction, DOMINOES & OTHER STORIES FROM THE PUERTO RICAN published by Curbstone Press.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1882413229
• ISBN13: 9781882413225
• Release Date: January 1996
• Publisher: Hanging Loose Press
• Length: 110 Pages
• Weight: 0.75 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.4" x 6.0" x 9.0"

Customer Reviews

Where the Sonnet tradition intersects with the City experience

These sonnets walk with a quiet dignity that command respect as opposed to begging for it. They also are unafraid to call blood blood or injustice injustice. These poems speak of experience and don't have the time to gawk at the everyday but instead the poet rushes home to celebrate it. From the first section, Landscapes, we get Agüeros' crown of sonnets honoring the memory of the Happy Land massacre where the poet morphs from chronicler to mourner to pointed political critic via subtle shifts in tone. Agüeros treats the sonnet like a virtuoso constantly playing with its possibilities and structure (Check out his "Sonnet with Twice the Lines") while always honoring its history -- the introduction pays homage to Shakespeare, Browning, cummings, Milay and "Ozymandias" -- proving that the sonnet (and all formal poetic structures, in my opinion) is as relevant today as ever. His middle section entitled Love... shows us a broken hearted speaker recalling over and over again the missed (squandered?) opportunities for happiness in his life. A lesser poet might be afraid to keep the microscope on such an obvious subject but it's Agüeros' insistence in highlighting the life and missteps of the every(wo)man that keeps this collection from being anything but mundane and elevates the day-to-day urban immigrant experience into reflections worthy of the sonnet tradition.