Adobe Odes

by Mora, Pat

• ISBN13: 9780816526109
• ISBN10: 0816526109
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2006-10-30
• Publisher: Univ of Arizona Pr

Summary

Wine-sipping syllables, a communion of bones, impetuous pinches of chile, and parrot-sassy guacamole. With a melange of aromas and tastes, colors and sounds, award-winning poet Pat Mora invites readers into her home in this new collection of forty-nine odes. Inspired by Pablo Neruda's Odas Elemantales and reinvented with a Latina identity, Mora celebrates the ordinary in lyrics that are anything but. Her poetry is the poetry of space--house patterns and adobe constructions--and the human rhythms that happen inside. It is also the poetry of what she loves--chocolate, books, dandelions, church bells, hope, courage, and even rain. Thick with the microcultures of foodstuffs, family, places, regions, deities, spirits, and literary figures, Mora's adobe universe is luscious and tactile, elemental and dynamic. From family gossip and beauty secrets, to women darning hand-me-downs, to reluctant hands carrying bodies across borders, Mora traverses the tangled threads of culture, community, family, gender, and injustice. Her vivid observations together with her deft handling of symmetry and meter make her poetry uniquely insightful, subtle, and elegant. Sprinkled with Spanish and plenty of spice, each ode is a sensory flurry of mind and body. Together they make a cauldron of flavorful, simmering language. They are meant to be savored as they slowly stir the soul.

Table of Contents

Ode to Adobe	1	(2)
Ode to Guacamole	3	(1)
Ode to Readers	4	(2)
Ode to Kitchens	6	(3)
Ode to Chiles	9	(3)
Ode to Chocolate	12	(3)
Ode to Arroz con Leche	15	(2)
Ode to Spirits	17	(2)
Ode to Names	19	(2)
Ode to a Book	21	(2)
Ode to Pablo Neruda	23	(3)
Ode to a Friend	26	(1)
Ode to a Cricket	27	(2)
Ode to a Child	29	(1)
Ode to Toes	30	(3)
Ode to Dandelions	33	(2)
Ode to a Sprite	35	(2)
Ode to a Bumblebee	37	(2)
Ode to a Jardin Mexicano	39	(2)
Ode to Sor Juana	41	(2)
Ode to Words	43	(3)
Ode to Our Lady of Guadalupe	46	(2)
Ode to an Apple	48	(3)
Ode to a Church Bell	51	(2)
Ode to Jesus Laughing	53	(3)
Ode to a Cottonwood	56	(3)
Ode to Desire	59	(1)
Ode to Play	60	(1)
Ode to Hope	61	(2)
Ode to Courage	63	(4)
Ode to Ancianas	67	(2)
Ode to El Paso	69	(3)
Ode to Workers	72	(3)
Ode to Rain	75	(1)
Ode to a Desert Willow	76	(2)
Ode to Sunflowers	78	(2)
Ode to Santa Fe	80	(3)
Ode to St. Francis of Assisi	83	(4)
Ode to Miracles	87	(1)
Ode to Another Chance	88	(1)
Ode to Skin	89	(3)
Ode to Women	92	(2)
Ode to Tulips	94	(2)
Ode to Lemons	96	(2)
Ode to Tea	98	(1)
Ode to a Pond	99	(3)
Ode to Clouds	102	(2)
Ode to the Earth	104	(2)
Ode to a Kiva Fireplace	106	(5)
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS	111