Does anyone know of any Spanish Poetry that talks about Hispanic life or culture?

2 Comments

1. dlcobb2000 says:

   October 17, 2009 at 4:14 pm

   Try "I Am Joaquin" By: Rodolfo Gonzáles

   I Am Joaquin (aka Yo Soy Joaquin), by Rodolfo "Corky" Gonzales, is a famous epic poem associated with the Chicano movement of the 1960s in the United States. In I am Joaquin, Joaquin (the narrative voice of the poem) speaks of the struggles that the Chicano people have faced in trying to achieve economic justice and equal rights in the U.S. He promises that his culture will survive if all Chicano people stand proud and demand acceptance.

   The Chicano movement inspired much new poetry. I Am Joaquin is one of the earliest and most widely read works associated with the movement. In its entirety, the poem describes the then modern dilemma of Chicanos in the 1960’s trying to assimilate with American culture while trying to keep some semblance of their culture intact for future generations, then proceeds to outline 2000 years of Mexican and Mexican-American history, highlighting the different, often opposing strains that make up the Chicano heritage.

   Obit

   RODOLFO “CORKY” GONZALES

   Gonzáles, boxer turned civil rights activist, dies at 76

   Rodolfo “Corky” Gonzáles, 76, a boxer turned Chicano civil rights activist, has died. Gonzáles died at his home in Denver on April 12, 2005 after being diagnosed with congestive heart failure and renal disease. “In the last days many people called him, e-mailed and came to see him to tell him how his activism changed their lives and made them better people,” his son, Rudy Gonzáles, said. With a 65-1-9 professional record as a featherweight, Gonzáles retired from boxing in 1955 to become the first Mexican-American district captain for the Democratic Party in Denver . Gonzáles’ 1965 poem titled, “I Am Joaquin,” [about sacrificing an alien culture to achieve economic stability in the United States , which appears in its lengthy entirety at http://www.laprensatoledo.com resonated with many Mexican-Americans. In 1966, he founded the Crusade for Justice, a cultural center that dealt in eradicating poverty and racial injustice, and met with César Chávez and Martin Luther King Jr. He also founded Escuela Tlatelolco Centro de Estudios, a nonprofit school and health care center. Gonzáles is survived by his wife, Geraldine, six daughters, two sons, 22 grand children and 8 great-grandchildren.

   Great poem

   I Am Joaquin by Rodolfo Corky Gonzales

   Yo soy Joaquín,
   perdido en un mundo de confusión:
   I am Joaquín, lost in a world of confusion,
   caught up in the whirl of a gringo society,
   confused by the rules, scorned by attitudes,
   suppressed by manipulation, and destroyed by modern society.
   My fathers have lost the economic battle
   and won the struggle of cultural survival.
   And now! I must choose between the paradox of
   victory of the spirit, despite physical hunger,
   or to exist in the grasp of American social neurosis,
   sterilization of the soul and a full stomach.
   Yes, I have come a long way to nowhere,
   unwillingly dragged by that monstrous, technical,
   industrial giant called Progress and Anglo success….
   I look at myself.
   I watch my brothers.
   I shed tears of sorrow. I sow seeds of hate.
   I withdraw to the safety within the circle of life —
   MY OWN PEOPLE
   I am Cuauhtémoc, proud and noble,
   leader of men, king of an empire civilized
   beyond the dreams of the gachupín Cortés,
   who also is the blood, the image of myself.
   I am the Maya prince.
   I am Nezahualcóyotl, great leader of the Chichimecas.
   I am the sword and flame of Cortes the despot
   And I am the eagle and serpent of the Aztec civilization.
   I owned the land as far as the eye
   could see under the Crown of Spain,
   and I toiled on my Earth and gave my Indian sweat and blood
   for the Spanish master who ruled with tyranny over man and
   beast and all that he could trample
   But…THE GROUND WAS MINE.
   I was both tyrant and slave.
   As the Christian church took its place in God’s name,
   to take and use my virgin strength and trusting faith,
   the priests, both good and bad, took–
   but gave a lasting truth that Spaniard Indian Mestizo
   were all God’s children.
   And from these words grew men who prayed and fought
   for their own worth as human beings, for that
   GOLDEN MOMENT of FREEDOM.
   I was part in blood and spirit of that courageous village priest
   Hidalgo who in the year eighteen hundred and ten
   rang the bell of independence and gave out that lasting cry–
   El Grito de Dolores
   "Que mueran los gachupines y que viva la Virgen de Guadalupe…."
   I sentenced him who was me I excommunicated him, my blood.
   I drove him from the pulpit to lead a bloody revolution for him and me….
   I killed him.
   His head, which is mine and of all those
   who have come this way,
   I placed on that fortress wall
   to wait for independence. Morelos! Matamoros! Guerrero!
   all companeros in the act, STOOD AGAINST THAT WALL OF INFAMY
   to feel the hot gouge of lead which my hands made.
   I died with them … I lived with them …. I lived to see our country free.
   Free from Spanish rule in eighteen-hundred-twenty-one.
   Mexico was free??
   The crown was gone but all its parasites remained,
   and ruled, and taught, with gun and flame and mystic power.
   I worked, I sweated, I bled, I prayed,
   and waited silently for life to begin again.
   I fought and died for Don Benito Juarez, guardian of the Constitution.
   I was he on dusty roads on barren land as he protected his archives
   as Moses did his sacraments.
   He held his Mexico in his hand on
   the most desolate and remote ground which was his country.
   And this giant little Zapotec gave not one palm’s breadth
   of his country’s land to kings or monarchs or presidents of foriegn powers.
   I am Joaquin.
   I rode with Pancho Villa,
   crude and warm, a tornado at full strength,
   nourished and inspired by the passion and the fire of all his earthy people.
   I am Emiliano Zapata.
   "This land, this earth is OURS."
   The villages, the mountains, the streams
   belong to Zapatistas.
   Our life or yours is the only trade for soft brown earth and maize.
   All of which is our reward,
   a creed that formed a constitution
   for all who dare live free!
   "This land is ours . . .
   Father, I give it back to you.
   Mexico must be free. . . ."
   I ride with revolutionists
   against myself.
   I am the Rurales,
   coarse and brutal,
   I am the mountian Indian,
   superior over all.
   The thundering hoof beats are my horses. The chattering machine guns
   are death to all of me:
   Yaqui
   Tarahumara
   Chamala
   Zapotec
   Mestizo
   Español.
   I have been the bloody revolution,
   The victor,
   The vanquished.
   I have killed
   And been killed.
   I am the despots Díaz
   And Huerta
   And the apostle of democracy,
   Francisco Madero.
   I am
   The black-shawled
   Faithfulwomen
   Who die with me
   Or live
   Depending on the time and place.
   I am faithful, humble Juan Diego,
   The Virgin of Guadalupe,
   Tonantzín, Aztec goddess, too.
   I rode the mountains of San Joaquín.
   I rode east and north
   As far as the Rocky Mountains,
   And
   All men feared the guns of
   Joaquín Murrieta.
   I killed those men who dared
   To steal my mine,
   Who raped and killed my love
   My wife.
   Then I killed to stay alive.
   I was Elfego Baca,
   living my nine lives fully.
   I was the Espinoza brothers
   of the Valle de San Luis.
   All were added to the number of heads that in the name of civilization
   were placed on the wall of independence, heads of brave men
   who died for cause or principle, good or bad.
   Hidalgo! Zapata!
   Murrieta! Espinozas!
   Are but a few.
   They dared to face
   The force of tyranny
   Of men who rule by deception and hypocrisy.
   I stand here looking back,
   And now I see the present,
   And still I am a campesino,
   I am the fat political coyote–
   I,
   Of the same name,
   Joaquín,
   In a country that has wiped out
   All my history,
   Stifled all my pride,
   In a country that has placed a
   Different weight of indignity upon my age-old burdened back.
   Inferiority is the new load . . . .
   The Indian has endured and still
   Emerged the winner,
   The Mestizo must yet overcome,
   And the gachupín will just ignore.
   I look at myself
   And see part of me
   Who rejects my father and my mother
   And dissolves into the melting pot
   To disappear in shame.
   I sometimes
   Sell my brother out
   And reclaim him
   For my own when society gives me
   Token leadership
   In society’s own name.
   I am Joaquín,
   Who bleeds in many ways.
   The altars of Moctezuma
   I stained a bloody red.
   My back of Indian slavery
   Was stripped crimson
   From the whips of masters
   Who would lose their blood so pure
   When revolution made them pay,
   Standing against the walls of retribution.
   Blood has flowed from me on every battlefield between
   campesino, hacendado,
   slave and master and revolution.
   I jumped from the tower of Chapultepec
   into the sea of fame–
   my country’s flag
   my burial shroud–
   with Los Niños,
   whose pride and courage
   could not surrender
   with indignity
   their country’s flag
   to strangers . . . in their land.
   Now I bleed in some smelly cell from club or gun or tyranny.
   I bleed as the vicious gloves of hunger
   Cut my face and eyes,
   As I fight my way from stinking barrios
   To the glamour of the ring
   And lights of fame
   Or mutilated sorrow.
   My blood runs pure on the ice-caked
   Hills of the Alaskan isles,
   On the corpse-strewn beach of Normandy,
   The foreign land of Korea
   And now Vietnam.
   Here I stand
   Before the court of justice,
   Guilty
   For all the glory of my Raza
   To be sentenced to despair.
   Here I stand,
   Poor in money,
   Arrogant with pride,
   Bold with machismo,
   Rich in courage
   And
   Wealthy in spirit and faith.
   My knees are caked with mud.
   My hands calloused from the hoe. I have made the Anglo ric
2. syleoz_alien says:

   October 17, 2009 at 4:14 pm

   Your request is a little tough to find…but I hope this poem helps….

   http://www.poesiaspoemas.com/julia-de-burgos/azul-de-tierra-en-ti

   It talks more about nature but it is all I could find…sorry…