Viewing entries tagged
Salvadoran Civil War
The Gravedigger’s Archeology / William Archila / 2015
Another haunting collection by Archila, exploring exile and war through a bluesy voice. This time, Archila employs longer sentences, like a repeated splash of piano keys, that sometimes wash over the reader. It’s harder to pin down this violence, almost like the more one digs the less earth one is standing on. It’s a worthy follow-up to the Art of Exile and fans of that will likely have more to love. 4 out of 5.
Tesoro / Yesika Salgado / 2018
Here, Salgado gets tantalizingly close to evolving as a poet. Poems like “Nostalgia,” “Excuses,” and “In Our Family” probe Salgado’s Salvadoran heritage in a meaningful way, but the collection quickly gives way to Salgado’s most well-trod obsession: heartbreak. Here, the poems do not get more thoughtful or interrogative than her Instagram, which is fine. Reading Salgado feels to me like reading one of my single tia’s diaries, only in my family those tia’s are liable to squeeze my ass unexpectedly and sour a family party. I’m glad Salgado doesn’t do that. Jokes aside, if I sound salty, it’s mostly because as arguably the most popular and wide-reaching Salvadoran poet with an enormous talent in performance and true gut-punching vulnerability, it would mean a lot to see Salgado move beyond her signature moves. Tesoro was supposed to do that. In the introduction, Salgado states that when she began writing Tesoro she wanted to write a bilingual collection where she gathered her family’s stories of survival. Instead, she inverted her gaze inward again, eschewing a tougher project to lick her own wounds again. For me, this is a 2 out of 5, despite some standout poems.
Art of Exile / William Archila / 2009
I’m so sad I slept on this gorgeous book for so many years. Archila narrates migration and warfare with a deceptively plainspoken style. Archila’s tenderness with his images and memories re-constitute the violence described in these poems. Rather than acts of terror reeking of gratuitous violence and voyeurism, Archila carves out a space of intimacy and privacy to breathe life into the dead and their survivors. This is not easy to do. It's hard to describe violence of this scale without rifling the reader with shock and agony. I don’t know what Archila did with his anger, but I wouldn’t say it’s a standout part of the collection. Here, Archila has performed the sacred alchemy of grieving. His bluesy style and step make the moments bearable while still feeling the sob of its sorrow. If you’re a fan of Komunyakaa and Dalton, look no further than Archila.
4.5/5
Poets and Prophets of the Resistance: Intellectuals and the Origins of the Salvadoran Civil War / Joaquín M. Chavez / 2017
This book is everything I wanted and more. It unbraids the tangle of historical movements fighting for justice in El Salvador during its revolutionary era, providing clarity where led savvy and untrained political thinkers only see chaos. It draws out the history of university militants, liberation theologians and their flocks, campesino organizers, and more in their respective and crossing paths for change, be it through electoral politics, armed resistance, or otherwise. The conversations and tensions between these groups is illuminating, especially since most history paints the Salvadoran conflict as a Cold War battle with US and Israel supporting the dictatorship and Cuba and Russia supporting the FMLN. The recovery of the different ideologies at play in the resistance is key to a deeper understanding of how we got to where we are now and how we can try to do better. It was illuminating for example to learn of Che Guevara's dismissal of revolutionary possibility in El Salvador, in part because the country lacks enough mountains for guerillas to retreat in, and how leftist militias built broader based coalitions to sustain the revolution, adapting Vietnamese and Maoist strategies. It was illuminating to learn of the debates surrounding Roque Dalton's death, where militarized and dogmatic rooted peasant revolutionaries bristled against the influence of cosmopolitan petit bourgeoisie they felt was attempting to hijack the revolution because they did not want a Cuban and Soviet revolution, but a Salvadoran one. This book holds the pain, paranoia, and horrors of people who literally sacrificed everything in an attempt to forge a brighter future for El Salvador. I'm immensely grateful to Chavez for his work. Alongside Unforgetting by Lovato, this book is key to understanding El Salvador and especially illuminated my understanding of the political forces at play. There's plenty of people and areas of research I will continue to research where Chavez has pointed me. 5/5