“Imagine the Angels of Bread”

“Imagine the Angels of Bread”

ByMartin Espada

* “Martín Espada’s “Imagine the Angels of Bread” is a fascinating combination of the vengeful and the visionary, of anger and compassion, and of reality and dream.
The speaker imagines a worldwide release from oppression, depicting an escape, among other injustices, from inhumane work conditions, tenant evictions, and politically motivated murders.
The poem proceeds by way of a series of near-apocalyptic revolutionary reversals, by inverting long-standing injustices as Espada, on the one hand, imagines those in power themselves suffering for the first time –”squatters evict landlords” –or, conversely, dreams of liberating the poor and the victims of discrimination.”
* Heather Zadra – Book Review Modern American Poetry Society
Imagine the Angels of Bread (Published, Norton, 1996)

Surviving 2nd Language Acquisition . . . and then She Appeared . . .

Surviving 2nd Language Acquisition . . . and then She Appeared . . .

ByJorge D. H. Prosperi

Schools to my immigrant uneducated parents were “Temples of Learning” and teachers were “Holy”.
The plan was simple – they would sacrifice and I would attend school.
Their past would not dictate my future.
But what they did not realize was that sometimes classrooms can imprison and oppress.
I was not learning but merely surviving – until she appeared . . .

Fronteras ~ “Dólares cuestan dolores” ~ “América es un país sin alma” ~ Immigrants Humanizing America

Fronteras ~ “Dólares cuestan dolores” ~ “América es un país sin alma” ~ Immigrants Humanizing America

ByJorge D. H. Prosperi

Immigration is often thought of as a collective noun.
On the contrary, each immigrant is an individual and comes to America for a plethora of different reasons.
Most often to enhance the quality of their lives and in turn the lives of others.

“Scripture tells us that we shall not oppress a stranger, for we know the heart of a stranger — we were strangers once, too. My fellow Americans, we are and always will be a nation of immigrants. We were strangers once, too.”
~ President Obama, November 20, 2014