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    Breathing Space
    Breathing Space
    Breathing Space
    Ebook214 pages1 hour

    Breathing Space

    By Harold J. Recinos

    ()

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    About this ebook

    Recinos fell in love with poetry growing up on the streets, after being abandoned by immigrant Latino parents. Finding shelter in public libraries, Recinos discovered that poetry was a way to make sense of living on the streets in the pitiable condition of teen homelessness and heroin addiction. After being unofficially adopted at the age of sixteen into a white American family from Ohio that moved to New York, he began a drug-free life, went to college, and eventually earned a PhD in cultural anthropology with honors from The American University in Washington, DC. Breathing Space is a poetry collection that raises to the level of consciousness the beauty and obstinate spirit of workers, mothers, grandmothers, brothers, sisters, revolutionaries, undocumented immigrants, and those considered unworthy of love. Recinos' poetry celebrates and chastises the inner workings of the American Dream and moves readers to develop a compassionate awareness for the hopes, struggles, and suffering of the most vulnerable members of society. Recinos' poetry not only expresses outrage and despair in the face of unjust suffering in the world, but the poems uniquely invite readers to see the beauty of people at the edges of society.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherResource Publications
    Release dateNov 10, 2017
    ISBN9781532639517
    Breathing Space
    Author

    Harold J. Recinos

    Harold Recinos is a poet with ten previous collections, and he is also Professor of Church and Society at the Perkins School of Theology at Southern Methodist University, a cultural anthropologist by training. His poetry has been featured in Anglican Theological Review, Weavings, Anabaptist Witness, and Afro-Hispanic Review, among others. Since the early-1980s, Recinos has worked with and defended the civil and human rights of Salvadoran refugees in the US and in marginal communities in El Salvador.

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      Book preview

      Breathing Space - Harold J. Recinos

      9781532639494.kindle.jpg

      Breathing Space

      Harold J. Recinos

      4013.png

      Breathing Space

      Copyright © 2017 Harold J. Recinos. All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in critical publications or reviews, no part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without prior written permission from the publisher. Write: Permissions, Wipf and Stock Publishers, 199 W. 8th Ave., Suite 3, Eugene, OR 97401.

      Resource Publications

      An Imprint of Wipf and Stock Publishers

      199

      W.

      8

      th Ave., Suite

      3

      Eugene, OR

      97401

      www.wipfandstock.com

      paperback isbn: 978-1-5326-3949-4

      hardcover isbn: 978-1-5326-3950-0

      ebook isbn: 978-1-5326-3951-7

      Manufactured in the U.S.A.

      Table of Contents

      Title Page

      The Block

      First Day

      Name

      The Road

      Awake

      Factory Girl

      The Vigil

      Cobbled Street

      Night

      The Fire

      First Light

      The Star

      The Paper Weight

      The Trousers

      My Country

      Look

      Amen

      Raids

      Holy Mother

      Waiting

      The Autocrat

      Tops

      The Lincoln Steps

      The Stairwell

      The Remains

      The School

      The Creek

      Voices

      Arise

      Name

      La Perla

      The Stench

      Dreamer

      Together

      The Drop

      City Park

      Mysteries

      Resurrection

      Piety

      The Sidewalk

      Little Girl

      The Birth

      Sneakers

      The Lesson

      Emancipation

      The Moon

      Belonging

      Open

      Idols

      The Compass

      Toxic Men

      God Bleeds

      Gaze

      Drifting

      La Bodega

      Chocolate

      The Tenants

      Mother

      Mr. President

      The Pestilence

      Heaven

      Wasteland

      The Ladder

      The Doll

      Scenes

      Funeral Home

      The Pardon

      The Basement

      Change

      The Library

      La Migra

      Memorial Day

      Sold

      Mystery

      The Rocking Chair

      The Wire Hanger

      The Salon

      Global Warming

      Seeing

      Come Away

      Grace

      Salvation

      Protest

      The Day

      The Television Show

      East River

      Soul

      The Beautiful

      Family

      Gone

      Traces

      Rap

      The Raid

      Revised Edition

      Believe Me

      Train Ride

      A Chilly Night

      The Spanish Daily

      Near

      Contemplation

      The Windowsill

      Devotion

      The Drums

      Dreaming

      Together

      Morning

      Far

      Sanctuary

      The Pendant

      Belief

      Kind

      Good-Bye

      Sunday

      The Cemetery

      Parade

      College Boy

      My Country

      Near

      When They Come

      Faces

      Middle School

      Bread

      The Song Crier

      The Florist

      Words

      Comfort

      Mary

      The Alley

      The Shopping Bag

      The Restaurant

      Day

      The Hurricane

      The Block

      someone told me in a few

      days the wind would bring

      news of the neighborhood

      sliding into perfection, yet

      it will not be easy to see with

      ordinary eyes, but the birds

      resting on the rooftops will

      flap their wings to see it clear

      for us. as it takes a firm hold

      not one disillusionment on the

      block will make us think life

      is hunger, longing, sadness,

      tragedy and loss. someone told

      me there must be a religion for

      all these brown lives living in

      the neighborhood, light-hearted talk

      of Tito’s grandfather dancing on

      on his only leg, exquisite words

      to carry us to the depths, and long

      descriptions of a place greater than

      the evidence of broken lives. someone

      told me to be patient in the world of

      poverty and tattered dress, perfection

      is just up the street, humming its way

      to us and will soon slip with large eyes

      unto our street.

      First Day

      I remember sharpened pencils

      out the night before the first day

      of school on a notebook, holding

      on to the idea of scribbling new

      thoughts about why old women on

      the block never learned to speak

      a lick of English, finding novel ways

      to see with clarity our end of the

      city that was never held up to a

      hint of light, and seeing words

      from some tome lunge at me to

      reveal why the kids with Spanish

      sounding names found their way

      into dark boxes marked for the grave

      dressed up lastly in new suits with

      black laced shoes shining for eternal

      rest. with pencil and notebook in

      hand, I would arrive early at school

      take my seat like an envoy from a foreign

      land eager for new lessons, and within

      seconds it was clear the teachers expected

      someone else in the room, after repeating

      with patronizing smiles, "You are not to

      speak Spanish at school!"

      Name

      when, you cross the

      border to this new land

      what risks wait for you

      beyond the unannounced

      raids at work, or the quiet

      walks with your kids, or

      the Sunday break in a local

      park, or the morning rides

      on the bus, or the meal taken

      in the American coffee shop

      across the street? when, la migra

      bangs on your thin apartment

      door seeking to slam you in

      a tax made cell, will you look

      back to shout good-bye to your

      American born kids, will you

      tell another friend to avoid the

      bright lights? when the avalanche

      of hate comes toward you in the

      loud thudding footsteps of pale-faced

      men eager to give you a fresh thorn

      crown will you remember your

      own precious name?

      The Road

      they followed a yellow brick road

      across two borders without the sight

      of day, waded across forbidden currents

      in an ancient river while vultures circled

      overhead, whispered on the long walk to

      a poor Crucified King, and prayed for a

      thousand miracles to hurry down from

      heaven to deliver them to their Emerald

      City. they slept in the desert like tossed

      out rags, scribbled dreams in the soil of

      the North, evaded the militia men with

      a hunger for blood, and questioned the

      land of freedom for dark skin. they

      settled in cities hiding amid crowds,

      raised children to speak ingles without

      Spanish drawls, boys grew up to serve in

      foreign wars, girls imagined a white marriage

      would keep them from a wooden cross, and

      elders prayed for an end to building the nation

      with the price of dark blood. they keep coming

      to El Norte, where nothing is secure, with pockets

      full of need, strangers with dreams, yearning for

      a place to call home.

      Awake

      what will wake us today

      to the ongoing darkening

      of light

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