-With inklings of Vallejo, Haskins takes the stance of a foreigner tottering between "home" and "other" in this thin but powerful collection of poetry. Haskins' other poems are small vignettes and stories, of brief glimpses into the lives of locals and travelers. Tightly worded, they snap with a mariachi's nimble feel for music. Haskins has a gift for juggling pain and pleasure, wisdom and fear, life and death, as she explores Mexican culture. She understands Lorca's idea of duende, a passionate spirit, and evokes it naturally in her work. Her writing demonstrates an acuteness of perception and a maturity of restraint that are refreshing because they produce subtle, thoughtful expressions that stand out from today's stream of in-your-face, confessional and theraputic verse. Extranjera, Haskins' seventh book of potry, seems flawed in only one way, its title. For the cumulative effect of this collection of poems is to reveal Lola Haskins as no foreigner to these poetic landscapes. Here, she is on solid home ground.
Janet St. John- Booklist
Eclipse
The government says that women
will not birth monsters,
that pigs will still nurse their young,
that corn will not shrink to ash.
But who believes the government?It is noon and night is falling.
You and I look only down.
We are afraid of what may be
glowing in the air.some truths so terrible
that to face them
would whiten our eyes forever.
Wait for Us
Watchful boys, gleams in their pockets,
circle the Plaza where a television
explains El Gran Eclipse de México,
as though the moon crossing the sun
belongs to this nation whose anthem
shouts of war.
This is Uruápan.
You can walk under the palms in
the Parque Nacional, where banyans
cast complicated roots, and bananas
hang in thick fingers. You can hear
the shouts of children practicing
insults and fighting- the many uses
of teeth.
But now it is night
and the foreigner is at risk.
The soft white foreigner. We walk
fast. They begin to follow us.
They quicken. Espéranos, they call.
Juan of the Angels
Sits in the dark bar. The hotel
no longer pays him for the songs
his fingers make on the instrument
which is the marriage of his hands.
Instead they bring him coca or cidral.
And when the bar's shadow spills
outside and the stars come out,
they bring him beer.
Every day Juan
leans more deeply on his cane, but
still he comes. Guests buy him drinks.
Sometimes they stop talking. Juan
plays on, talk or none. All his
melodies are hungers.
One evening
a boy, perhaps fourteen, comes in.
The boy says nothing, listens with
his eyes. Juan cradles his guitar.
Soy gitano, he says. Gypsy.
The boy, who speaks no Spanish,
thinks Juan is saying his name,
so he says Django and points to
his own thin chest. Juan offers
him the guitar, with its mouth
of mother of pearl, and the small
moons along the frets.
The boy
bends over. His dark hair falls
across his face. He makes the song
young Juan would play for the women
to dance. All night, the same strum.
The women's skirts whirl around
the long fires. The stars are
turning pale.
The boy plays on alone.
Waiting for the Bus
She casts the only shade at the crossroads.
She has set the huge basket down
full of sticks to sell,
which she slings with her rebozo over
her shoulder.
Her bare feet feel the dust
no more than stones do, but there is beginning
in her head
a sort of flying.
She counts
the ribs of a cow, shifting under its stretched
skin as it mouths the sparse grass between
the rocks.
She sings to herself, a song with
her name:
Si Adelita se fuera con otro, la seguiría
por tierra y por mar
but the heat is a dry sea
and a wind is coming up and she is feeling
what she felt when she first saw the young
soldier in his glorious uniform, her Juan
who died this morning,
his few coins arranged
in the dirt by the bruja to stop the pain,
the bruja who took the coins and went away.
And somehow
Adela's smooth braids are turning
to wings, and the road is spinning, and Ay
she thinks, soaring above the desert, free
in the hard blue sky.
He is seeking me by air
Uchepas
Tamales plain-steamed then whitened
like a wedding dress, with cream
and queso. A beautiful, simple food.
And not enough. We want more.We are cravers of storms and choques
on the highway. We never mind
waiting in the long stopped lines
if at the end there can be some blood.Forget our lovers. We want a stranger,
shiver deepest at the hairs on the
backs of someone's hands, who
has not touched us yet.
Casa
I am walled and atop my walls
are glass teeth.
Sharp jewels of green and amber.
Clear shards to catch the light
the way a bride turns her ring.Inside, soft red flowers open.
Inside, yellow bougainvilla glitters
like the yellow specks in my eyes.
Oh if you would be a thief
come crawling. Come bleeding.
Come to me in ribbons.