Empire

Poems by Xochiquetzal Candelaria

Publication Year: 2011

Using both lyrical and narrative forms, these concise verses explore a family history set against the larger backdrop of Mexican history, immigration, and landscapes of the Southwest. The poet’s delicate touch lends these poems an organic quality that allows her to address both the personal and the political with equal grace. Straightforward without being simplistic or reductive, these poems manage to be intimate without seeming self-important.

This distinctive collection ranges from the frighteningly whimsical image of Cortés dancing gleefully around a cannon to the haunting and poignant discovery of a dead refugee boy seemingly buried within the poet herself. The blending of styles works to blur the lines between subjects, creating a textured narrative full of both imagination and nuance.

Ultimately, Empire situates individual experience in the wider social context, highlighting the power of poetry as song, performance, testimony, and witness. Addressing themes such as war, family, poverty, gender, race, and migration, Candelaria gives us a dialogue between historical and personal narratives, as well as discreet “conversations” between content and form.

Published by: University of Arizona Press

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Book Details

E-ISBN-13: 9780816505371
Print-ISBN-13: 9780816528820

Publication Year: 2011

Empire

Cover

Title Page, Copyright, Dedication

Contents

I

Mexico, 1910

Migration

Primavera

Cort�s and Cannon

Many Years After

Empire #1: Five and Dime Store, 1949

A Daughter

Parade

1973

Caught in the Eye of the Sun

Empire #2: Poet

Although You Can Take It—

A Question

II

Esta Palabra

Sappho

The Report

On Language

Between the House and the Hill

Boom

The Message

Empire #3: Marriage

Core Greater Than Three Solar Masses

The Irises

Blue Alert

The Novitiate

Leda Explains

Christmas, 1964

Here We Are

After Sex

III

Chimayo, New Mexico

Quixote

The Only Thing I Imagine Luz Villa Admires about Her Husband’s Gun—

The Loudspeaker

Empire #4: Mirror

Ode to Water

Portrait of a Voice

Scree

Memory from a Bone Sample

Missing Mariachi

Combustion

The Wild P ink

After the Death of Pancho Villa

The Last Line

Acknowledgments

About the Author

Research Areas

Recommend

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