VivirLatino

Charlie Vázquez’s bilingual (English/Spanish) poetry collection, Meditations/Meditaciones – Bronx/Salsa is an impressive one for its varied subject matter rooted in three basic themes: place, identity and the senses that tie us there.

The place is the Bronx but also places left behind and returned to as outsider like Puerto Rico. The identity Vázquez invokes in his poems is that of a son – not just to a father he is estranged from but also the son of multiple islands from which he is also estranged. The senses are physical ones. with poems like The Dance of Life, invoking Taino ancestry and spelling – we hear the origins and evolution of history through Rican/Cuban music and those who made it and move to it. Some of the characters are real living beings. Others are spirits.

The theme of sound and motion permeates the vast collection.
I was really struck by the number of pieces in the collection and the accompanying album list that included classics of salsa. Before I began delving into the poems I wondered if I should use the album list as a sort of soundtrack by which to read the collection. I opted not to after finding it difficult to sense the rhythm of each individual poem when it was competing with Celia Cruz or another salsa great.

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