The Theater of Night

by Rios, Alberto

• ISBN13: 9781556592300
• ISBN10: 1556592302
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2006-01-31
• Publisher: Copper Canyon Pr

Summary

"Rios writes in a serenely clear manner."-The New York Times Book Review "Rios' verse inhabits a country of his own making, sometimes political, often personal, with the familiarity and pungency of an Arizona chili."-The Christian Science Monitor Following the success of his National Book Award nomination, Alberto Rios' new book is filled with magic, marvel, and emotional truth. Set along the elusive Mexican-American border, his poems trace the lives and loves of an elderly couple, Clemente and Ventura, through their childhood and courtship to marriage, maturity, old age, and death. From The Chair She Sits In I've heard this thing where, when someone dies, People close up all the holes around the house- The keyholes, the chimney, the windows, Even the mouths of the animals, the dogs and the pigs. It's so the soul won't be confused, or tempted. It's so when the soul comes out of the body it's been in, But which doesn't work anymore, It won't simply go into another one And try to make itself at home, Pretending as if nothing happened . . . Rios' narratives are both surreal and hyper-real, creating the hard, sweet weave of two lives becoming one. The National Book Award judges noted that Rios is a "poet of reverie," and like the best of storytellers he charms his readers, making us care deeply for-even love-these people we read. Alberto Rios is the poet laureate of Arizona and teaches at Arizona State University. He is the author of eight books of poetry, three collections of short stories, and a memoir. Rios is the recipient of numerous awards, and his work is included in over 175 national and international literary anthologies. His work is regularly taught and translated and has been adapted to dance and both classical and popular music.

Table of Contents

ONE
Northern Desert Towns in the Turn of the Old Century	3	(2)
The Mermaid Comb	5	(3)
Clemente, in Love, Speaks to Himself in the Mirror	8	(2)
The Pomegranate and the Big Crowd	10	(3)
I Heard Him with My Back	13	(3)
Mesquite Coyotes	16	(2)
Clemente's Red Horse	18	(4)
A Change Witnessing of the Morning Animal	22	(5)
TWO
They Said I Was a Crying Bride	27	(2)
The River Was Their Honeymoon	29	(2)
A Marrow of Water	31	(2)
The Light Brown Map	33	(1)
My Husband Clemente	34	(2)
The Song of His Hands	36	(1)
Aunt Matilde's Story of the Big Day	37	(2)
Santa Teresa in Nogales	39	(6)
THREE
What He Does to Me	45	(1)
Who Had Been Friendly Now Strangers and Hard Work	46	(3)
The Blurred Woman in the Photograph	49	(1)
Noise from the Sea	50	(1)
The Kitchen Talk of Comadres Regarding a Certain Problem	51	(3)
Explaining a Husband	54	(1)
Good Manners	55	(2)
The Donkey Men of Sonora in the 1930s	57	(6)
FOUR
Her Secret Love, Whispered Late in Her Years	63	(2)
Daily Dog	65	(2)
The Dreams That Cried	67	(1)
People Here Since Before Time	68	(2)
The Chair She Sits In	70	(1)
My Ears Get Bigger from Listening	71	(2)
Later, When She Was Like She Was	73	(1)
Having Forgotten about Eating	74	(1)
A Song of the Old Days	75	(4)
FIVE
Clemente's Wife	79	(2)
Chance Meeting of Two Men	81	(1)
The Conversation of Old Husbands	82	(1)
The Old Man Clemente Prays, Talking to His Wife Even Still	83	(3)
No Instructions for Men like Him	86	(3)
The Green That Calls a Person to It	89	(2)
What Abides	91	(3)
The White	94	(5)
SIX
The Theater of Night	99	(2)
Great-Grandmothers, Neatly Starched	101	(2)
The Cures of Green and Night	103	(2)
Coffee in the Afternoon	105	(1)
Clemente and Ventura Show Themselves, if Just for a Moment, in Their Son	106	(2)
Two and a Half Men	108	(2)
The Drive-In of the Small Animals	110	(7)
About the Author	117