El Agua Es La Sangre de la Tierra/water is the blood of the earth.
by Alifair Skebe
Original cover art by the
author.
Finishing Line Press, 2008.
Available through the
publisher
https://www.finishinglinepress.com/product/el-aqua-es-la-sangre-de-la-tierra-the-water-is-the-blood-of-the-earth-by-alifair-skebe/.
ISBN 978-1-59924-243-9
Retail price: $12 USD
25 pages
Genre/subgenre: Poetry
Description:
In the Rio Grande Valley of
New Mexico State, there is an old Spanish idiom that dates back to the 16th
Century: “El agua es la sangre de la tierra.” In the near-desert conditions of
the terrain, the water is the life-blood of the valley, manipulated by the
acequias, or water-gulleys, an intricate labyrinth of man-made creeks and locks
that divert water from the Rio Grande to irrigate the nearby farms. The Spanish
believed they civilized that earth during colonization, but there still exists
today the Native communities, reservations, and a cultural tradition deeply
rooted in the natural rhythms of the land. This long poem looks synchronically
at those layers of culture conversant in the landscape: nature unbridled, the
indigenous First Peoples’ cultures, Spanish colonialism and monasteries, the
appropriation of native traditions in modern art, and the sprawling commercial
wasteland left by capitalism. These images are layered across the backdrop of
the unsolved murder of a teenage girl at the Sandia Mountains. She comes to
represent the embodiment of a feminine Earth in the contemporary sphere.
No comments:
Post a Comment