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Welcome to my site! Here is the table of contents. Please comment at your own choice.

• Biography


• Discussion Questions


• The genre of Martin Espada's poems


• Context for "Albanza: In Praise of Local 100"


• Context for "Jorge the Church Janitor Finally Quits"


• The common thread between "Albanza: In Praise of Local 100" & "Jorge the Church Janitor Finally Quits"


• Interviews and Quotes

I hope you enjoy!

-Mallory Carter

Biography

Martin Espada was born in 1957 and raised in Brooklyn, New York. His father, Frank Espada, is a political activist and an immigrant from Puerto Rico. Martin worked as a lawyer and then went on to work as an English professor at the University of Massachusetts. His poetry got national recognition for condemnation of political and social unfairness. His poems central role is the historicity that comes from the view of the victimized, the people that do not get credit for what they do, and the oppressed. Keeping his anger from being too much in his poetry, he adds humor and compassion to help lower the anger and bring other levels of meaning to his poems. Having these different levels helps the reader better relate to the point he is getting across.

From Literature and Society fourth edition

His collections:

Trumpets from the Island of Their Eviction (1987)
Rebellion Is the Circle of a Lover's Hands (1990)
City of Coughing and Dead Radiators (1993)
Imagine the Angels of Bread (1996)
Zapata's Disciple (1998)
A Mayan Astronomer in Hell's Kitchen (2000)
Albanza: New and Selected Poems (2003)

Discussion Questions

Questions about all Martin Epsadas poems

1. How does the poems of Martin Espada determine real life events? How does his poetry have a link to reality?

2. Do you feel that Martin Espada's poems relate to his life or just people in general?

3. Does Martin Espada show too much anger in his poems are does he even the anger out with compassion? What makes you feel this way?

Questions about "Albanza: In Praise of the Local 100"

1. Is this historical poem about a part of history a long time ago or a short time ago? What historical event is this poem about?

2. Who does the poem focus on? What is the significants of the focus?

Questions about "Jorge the Church Janitor Finally Quits"

1. How does the ending of this poem differ from the ending of Albanza: In Praise of the Local 10?

2. What effect does Jorges job have on him? How does it make him feel?

The Genre of Martin Espada's Poems

Martin Espada is a poem writer. He enjoys writing poems about political things, so it would be obvious a genre of his would be political poetry. A person could also say he is a social poet because he also writes about the social factor of peoples lives. Also a genre of Martin Espada could be historical poetry because he writes a lot about things that happened in history and how these events effect many people. His poetry can come across with anger. He writes about people that are angry about something although he tends to ease the anger with compassion. The genre of his poetry could be said to be a variety of different things. Martin Espada's poems can be seen differently by different people. Some may feel he is sympathetic to the person he is writing about, or showing how people discriminate other people, while others may feel he is showing anger and unfairness coming from the person he is writing about.

Context for "Alabanza: In Praise of Local 100"

This poem by Martin Espada is about the 9/11 attach on the World Trade Centers. He focuses on the restaurant workers and lower jobs that were affected by 9/11. Usually in text about this attach authors focus on the main people such as the fire fighters and the soldiers. Martin Espada wants to give credit to the people that are not recognized but were still hurt by the attach. He wants to show that the lower people were important as well as the fire fighters and soldiers. He wants to keep these people and their families in his thoughts to keep them involved. Martin wants to get the point across that these people were very affected by the 9/11 attach and deserve recognition as well as anyone else.

The poem has historical context and is about war. Although it is a war poem it is different than other war poems. Martin's poem is about the 9/11 attach which was about an event that was quite recent compared to most wars talked about in poems. Since his poem is about an attach that was more recent, the people that were hurt by this are not as forgotten as the ones in most war poems, which are usually written about a war a long time ago. Reading this poem, society can easily relate to 9/11. Also his poem is not necessarily about war but about an event that started a war. Although Martin Espada's poem Alabanza: In Praise of Local 100 has differences from most war they are also similar because in all war poems innocent people died as in this poem.

Context for "Jorge the Church Janitor Finally Quits"

This poem by Martin Espada is not meant to be a funny poem but some of the images tend to be amusing. An image that sticks out in the text to be funny is how it says, "I host the fiesta of the bathroom." This shows that he is always there while herds of people flood into the bathroom, but is invisible. Again Martin focuses on the worker that is not noticed as often as others. People ignore him and few even realize he is there. This poem is sad and shows that everyone has feelings not just the people that are talked about the most. Martin wants to make it clear that just because Jorge is a church janitor, he is still important and people should recognize him and be thankful for what he does. Jorge does not like his job because he is ignored. In the end Jorge quits being a janitor because no one cares that he is there; he is invisible to people. It says that no one will even know he quits and they will think the next janitor is Jorge because they never payed attention enough to know the real Jorge.

picture from: http://farm4.static.flickr.com/

The common thread between "Albanza: In Praise of Local 100" & "Jorge the Church Janitor Finally Quits"

The common thread between these two poems by Martin Espada is they are both about people that are not noticed for the hard work they do; they are invisible to people as if they do not exist. Martin wrote these poems to show that all people are important no matter what occupation they have. He wants to prove that they deserve credit for what they do because they work as hard and go through as much stress and damage as anyone else. His poems show that society only pay attention to who they believe are important people and ignore all the others. Martin wants to prove society is wrong and to show that all people have feelings and should be treated equal. People take advantage of the workers that do the little things in life such as clean toilets, sweep floors, work in a restaurant, or work in a convenient store. What if these people really didn't exist in society? Without these "little people" society would be a disaster, therefore people need to realize and take into consideration the people they take for granted and what good these people actually are to society. He wants to recognize the people that are invisible to others and show how good they really are.

Alabanza: In Praise of Local 100 tells about people being invisible by telling about the restaurant workers during 9/11. These workers were highly affected by the attach but were not noticed by anyone; the only people noticed were the main people such as the fire fighters. Martin wants to show that the restaurant workers were also important and should be thought about.

Jorge the Church Janitor Finally Quits tells about a janitor that is not noticed by all the people he cleans for. They don't realize how important he is and how much help he is to them. Martin wants to show that he needs to be recognized for what he does because he cleans for everyone, he does not do it for himself. People need to know who he is and say thank you for the job he does.

Interviews and quotes

Interview

E. Ethelbert Miller: We both came out of public housing in New York City. Do you find this experience still singing a song in your imagination?

Martin Espada: I spent my entire childhood in public housing, growing up in the East New York section of Brooklyn. This had to shape my imagination. I recently returned there after many years in the company of Mari McQueen, a childhood friend who is now a writer and editor at Consumer Reports. Mari put those years in perspective. She said: "Everyone who comes out of this place has a hard edge... We learned early in life that disrespect has serious consequences, up to and including death." Mari remembered what I had forgotten.

I ended up writing a poem about this experience of going back, called "Return," which recalls a fight in the street in front of my building 40 years ago, a thrown can clanging off my head, blood everywhere, me banging on doors in the hallway for help. That's a song, I suppose, but it's a song of grief on the one hand, and a song to survival on the other.


E. Ethelbert Miller: Does a Puerto Rican writer today still write out of a feeling of dislocation?

Martin Espada: A Puerto Rican writer from New York is doubly dislocated: first, there is dislocation from Puerto Rico; secondly, there is Puerto Rico's dislocation from itself. Puerto Rico is a colony of the United States. It may be a truism that you can't go home again, but it's especially true when home is an occupied territory. A Puerto Rican writer from New York, like myself, is twice alienated. I never forget that in this country I belong to a marginalized, silenced, even despised community; yet, in Puerto Rico, as a "Nuyorican" poet, I am marginalized again, for reasons related and unrelated to the island's colonial status.

Strangely enough, this sense of never being at home, this sense of not truly belonging anywhere, produces a friction that sets off the sparks of poetry. If I am always at the margins, then I am by necessity the observer; if I am always on the outside, then I am by definition independent; if I am never anchored to one place, then I am free to wander; if I am never blinded by loyalty, then I am free to speak the truth as I see it.
From: http://www.zmag.org/znet/viewArticle/1565

Quotes

"A poem is not a pop-tart." — Martin Espada

Never pretend to be a unicorn by sticking a plunger on your head. " — Martin Espada

"Even the most political poem is an act of faith." — Martin Espada