THE WIND SHIFTS
select critical commentary:
“Despite the comprehensiveness of Aragón’s introduction, nothing can really prepare us for the poetry that is found in The Wind Shifts. The ‘new’ is inside this anthology; by reading, we witness the shifting borders of the “new”—their fragility and freight. The Wind Shifts posits that new Latino Poetry roots in the politics and aesthetics of Chicano poetry and crosses the borders between local / global, narrative / experimental, grounded / nomadic, national / international, aesthetic / political. Aragón’s anthology not only maps the expanding borders of Latino poetry, but it also encourages the wind to shift towards new horizons.”
--Craig Santos Perez, Galatea Resurrects “There are poems of all styles, from avant-garde to traditional, inspired by myriad human experiences: an evocative Frida Kahlo painting; helping one’s father cut lawns for the wealthy; Bible stories; the quiet horror of testing positive for HIV; accidentally killing the family cat. In other words, The Wind Shifts presents new Latino poetry in all its varied forms and subject matter by innovative, intrepid writers who purposely stretch the canvas upon which they paint.”
--Daniel A. Olivas, The Elegant Variation |
“It is this emphasis on poetics that steers the many themes addressed by the poets in the collection. These are too numerous to list, but Juan Felipe Herrera’s richly textured foreword best approximates an overview: ‘The sensorium of the verse seems paramount in this assemblage—what we read are sensory radiations of shapes, liquids, objects-for-themselves, jump-cut scenes, collisions of cultures, icons, memoria, body, texture, death, and danger.”
--Gavin O’Toole, The Latin American Review of Books
--Gavin O’Toole, The Latin American Review of Books
buy The Wind Shifts
select reviews of The Wind Shifts:
"...Aragón notes shrewdly, while the political and social themes once so prominent in Latino poetry persist as vital traditions alongside a poetics of witness, the work in The Wind Shifts 'suggests that the canvas is now larger, its border expanded to include subject matter that is not overtly political.'"
-Gavin O’Toole, The Latin American Review of Books | Read Full Review
-Gavin O’Toole, The Latin American Review of Books | Read Full Review
"Aragón notes that 'poems that address the social and the political continue to be vital strands in Latino poetry today.' However, with time comes change and evolution. Aragón believes that 'the canvas is now larger, its border expanded to include subject matter that is not overtly political.'"
-Daniel A. Olivas, The Elegant Variation | Read Full Review
-Daniel A. Olivas, The Elegant Variation | Read Full Review
"Despite the comprehensiveness of Aragón’s introduction, nothing can really prepare us for the poetry that is found in The Wind Shifts."
-Craig Santos Perez, Galatea Resurrects | Read Full Review
-Craig Santos Perez, Galatea Resurrects | Read Full Review
Poetry Off the Shelf: “The New Latino Poetry”
podcast with Curtis Fox, released on July 18, 2007 A conversation with Francisco Aragón about the anthology, The Wind Shifts. Listen here |