The Fever of Being by Luis Alberto Urrea (review)

Reviews 279 tional view, but not wrong-headed or ungenerous. And, like old songs covered by a fresh singer, these remind us of good things. DEBRA L. PARK Central Wyoming College The Fever of Being. By Luis Alberto Urrea. (Albuquerque: West End Press, 1994. 82 pages, $9.95.) Luis Alberto Urrea’s poems here are, for the most part, narratives of a his­ tory of the son of a Mexican father and an American mother; Urrea’s relatives and languages zig zag along the frontier between his two countries. The book has fives chapters, “First Convocation,” “Procession,” “Ceremony,” “Horses,” and “Final Convocation.” The chapters gather memories of his life, beginning with a boyhood in Tijuana and moving through to adulthood, with poems focussing on such places as Boston, New Hampshire, Durango, Chihuahua, Texas, California, Wyoming, and Utah. “First Convocation” is comprised of one poem; “Final Convocation” has two poems. The chapters in between are the longer ones: “Procession” is set in Tijuana; “Ceremony” moves from Texas to New England; “Horses” involves the West, with Tom Horn and Geronimo a couple of its subjects. The poems of “Final Convocation” relate back to the whole, one quoting the narrator’s mother, the other mentioning Steve McQueen (who, incidentally, played the part of Tom Horn in his final film) and William Holden, another dead hero. Written in both English and Spanish, with a few poems only in Spanish, these poems remind one of such writers as Jimmy Santiago Baca and Cormac McCarthy, the language a blend of the images and references that are now only normal in the Southwest. There, one asks a question in Spanish and is answered in English, then is asked a question in Spanish and answers in English. The images of the poems are as American as Chevies and Lucky Strikes, Greyhound buses and Mars bars, as Mexican as Pancho Villa and starving dogs. Luis Alberto Urrea won the 1994 Western States Book Award for poetry. I can see why. These poems give us glimpses of the hills on both sides of the bor­ der, some that Tom Horn and Geronimo in their meanderings no doubt saw. Most of the poems here are worth chasing. RAY ZEPEDA California State University, Long Beach ...