“When, Abuelito…?”
So there you are standing on the side walk;
The obscure streets are illuminated by the passing cars,
And the smell of tires and black pavement pollutes the air.
It’s 8:30 p.m.-ish in Hollywood.
The family is sight seeing.
You’ve got family from Colombia visiting.
Three cousins, from your father’s side of the family,
Of whom you have no recollection,
But of whom you remember meeting.
And your abuelito
Starts teaching you how to cross the street…
You ask in your seven year old voice, “When, abuelito;
¿Cuándo puedo cruzar la calle?”
Traffic is congested. It’s dark.
Drivers are frustrated. You can hear it in the way they beep their horns.
Abuelito finally asks you, as he points to the pedestrian signal,
“¿Ves el figurín que esta caminando?”
You nod your head, biting your nails, a habit you can’t seem to quit.
He holds your hand tightly
As the red hand now begins to flash.
“Ahora es cuando cruzas.”
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Interesting realistic story about something so simple. I had to look up the Spanish words, so that might it a slightly more difficult read but it was decent.
The simplicity of our minds as a child. I suppose the kid sees the hand flashing and thinks that they won’t have enough time to make it across?
Very powerful and baring an intence meaning to this poem.The beginning is a bit vague In the end everything was crystal clear. I love your imagery in this piece. I applaud you for your efforts and enjoyed this poem to its fullest.Keep writing.
You truly have captured a personal moment in time and made it a literature event. You could possibly work in more details to make this piece stronger, but it might detract from an already great piece of work.
I am glad you did not try to throw in any rhyming. Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn’t. Usually it does not for more serious, personal pieces such as this one.
I really like the writing style here – it reminds me a little bit of Jack Kerouac’s prose poetry in that it seems like it’s begging to be read aloud in a conversational, slightly wistful tone. The one thing that hurts the clarity of it in my mind is that the reader doesn’t know how old the protagonist is until the second stanza – I would try to incorporate that into the first stanza so it doesn’t come as such a surprise. For some reason, the casual tone in which the poem is being narrated made me think that the protagonist was an adult.
Great use of the second person – second person is difficult, because it can easily become very distracting and annoying, and seem overly clever. Here, though, it feels just right.
The only thing making it quite unclear to me, the ending that is, is the use of your Spanish. Seeing as I don’t speak it, I have no idea what’s going on ;/ I’m left wondering whether they’re going to pass for a red light, which might lead to something bad or if they are just standing there, waiting. It’s a shame, because I really like the way you’ve written your poem.
I enjoyed this poem. I like your use of Spanish. It seems to add to the strength of the piece. When re-reading, I would have changed – “you’ve got family from Colombia” to ‘You have family from Colombia’ -it seems to read better. Otherwise, great job.
Hey, this is a treasured memory, I am sure. Your grandpa got mixed up about the traffic signal. That much is clear. It really takes the reader there when you hear about the frustrated traffic. I imagine that when you are sightseeing in Hollywood, and traffic is bumper-to-bumper, you can make that mistake because the traffic is stop-and-go regardless of the signal. One change I’ll suggest: Change “But of whom you remember meeting.” to “But whom you remember meeting.”
October 18, 2006
Although the scope of this poem seems fairly narrow – unless I’m missing something fundamental it doesn’t seem to address any big issues – I thought it was very well done, and the narrowness of it didn’t put me off at all, so I hope you don’t take that the wrong way. I thought the scene was evoked well, with a good deal of atmosphere, and although I don’t understand the language, the lines in Spanish didn’t seem to obstruct my enjoyment of the poem. Stylisticaly, I thought had it been formatted differently it could easily have been passed off as prose, which I didn’t have a problem with, but I wonder if you were aware that people may see it like that?
I’m pretty sure it goes without saying that I love, love, love this piece. The way you lace Spanish into a predominantly English piece is just terrific. I think it’s finished. I coulnd’t possibly imagine anything after that perfect last line. Every time I read this, I can just imagine that it’s me – you use all your adjectives, nouns, etc. so effectively and yet there’s not too many or too few. I also love the way you include some clips that define our speaker: the nail biting, the voice, the smells. Everytime I read this it’s like the first time I’m reading it. It’s sort of refreshing to read such a great pice of writing. Bravo, bravo.
Peace & Love, Anna N.
I need to pay attention in my Spanish class more. >.<
I like that it is personal and straight-forward, but still has obscurity. Your descriptions are the perfect length—long enough to invoke images for the reader, but not so long that they are boring and over done.
It also has an air of innocence to it. The descriptions are something that a child would notice. The whole poem sticks together under one theme, even though it deals with several things.
I love that it refers to a grandfather and grandchild, which is a very deep relationship that doesn’t get expressed very much. It is one that requires alot of trust, which you have clearly shown in your poem.
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