Colibrí (Criticism)

Criticism

What Do I Read Next?

• Imagine the Angels of Bread (1996) is Espada’s sixth book of poems and, like his previous five, has been widely praised by critics. Reviewing the collection for the Progressive, Matthew Rothschild notes that Espada “continues to serve up his trademark vignettes of the indignities that working-class and immigrant Americans suffer every day.”
• Puerto Rico Past and Present (1998), by Ronald Fernandez, Serafin Mendez, and Gail Cueto, is an encyclopedia that provides a useful and broad overview of more than five hundred years of Puerto Rican history and culture.
• In 1995, Ballantine Books published Boricuas: Influential Puerto Rican Writings — An Anthology, edited by Roberto Santiago. This anthology contains more than fifty selections of poetry, fiction, plays, essays, monologues, screenplays, and speeches from some of the most powerful voices in Puerto Rican literature. Poems by Espada are included.
• In 1994, Espada edited Poetry Like Bread: Poets of the Political Imagination, published by Curbstone Press. The anthology collects poems by activist writers, such as El Salvador’s Roque Dalton, Nicaragua’s Tomas Borge, and Puerto Rico’s Clemente Soto Velez.

By making one of the subjects of his poem Eurolinguistic colonialism, Espada foregrounds the very processes of making history. The fact that the Spaniards colonized the Borinquens, naming them and their world, gives them the “right” to write history. This, along with the mixing of Taino culture and blood over the last five hundred years with the Spanish, African, and French, has made it difficult for people of Taino descent to explore their roots or assert their identity. The very fact that many use the word Taino to identify themselves is proof of colonialism’s continuing power and reach. The waning of colonial powers over the last century, however, coupled with the rise of the human rights movement have created a space for just such an exploration of their history. As a result, numerous new histories written from the point of view of subjugated peoples have been published. Espada alludes to this in the last two lines of the poem when he writes, “If only history / were like your hands.” As well as echoing the image of the collection’s title, this wish is also a statement of possibility, for history is both made through the hard work of people often unacknowledged and written with one’s hands.

In supporting Puerto Rican independence, Espada is swimming against the tide of history. The Nationalist Party, the leading voice for independence, has been linked to violence, and nationalists have been engaged in a number of violent acts, including the attempted assassination of President Truman in 1950 and the shooting of five members of the U.S. House of Representatives in 1954. In 1967, Puerto Rico voted to remain a commonwealth, and, in 1993, Governor Pedro Rosselló of the New Progressive party held a plebiscite in which 48 percent of the voters elected to petition the U.S. Congress to retain the commonwealth with enhanced status, 46 percent chose statehood, and just 4 percent chose independence.

Source: Chris Semansky, Critical Essay on “Colibrí,” in Poetry for Students, The Gale Group, 2002.

Pamela Steed Hill

Hill is the author of a poetry collection, has published widely in literary journals, and is an editor for a university publications department. In the following essay, Hill suggests that the horrors of virtual genocide and destruction of a culture are made all the more poignant by the soft, beautiful imagery and low-key voice that Espada uses to describe them.

Quite often, poets who want to use their creative skills and poetic inspirations to make social or political statements do so in harsh, “loud” language that seems to shout at the reader in anger and protest. Sometimes the words are meant to shock, whether by means of the brutal or explicit subjects they describe or by being the taboo four-letter kind, and the desired results are to rile the reader into feeling what the poet feels, believing what the poet believes. Sometimes these kinds of poems work. Consider, for instance, Allen Ginsberg’s much-heralded anthem of the Beat Movement, “Howl,” which shocked, outraged, and protested its way into the annals of classic American literature. Since then, many other poets have taken up their pens and used them like axes, chopping through polite, safe protocols to produce works that arouse reactions, both positive and negative. For these writers, the poem is a soapbox — a good place to get vocal and draw a crowd. But one need not always shout to be heard. In “Colibrí,” Martín Espada addresses one of the most controversial and maligned historical accounts ever recorded — Columbus’s “discoveries” and the subsequent Spanish colonization of New World territories — and he does so with a quiet voice, subtle innuendos, and strikingly beautiful imagery. This kind of poem works too, often better than a loud one.

A bit of historical research and a good understanding of Puerto Rican culture are essential in realizing the full meaning of “Colibrí.” While one can read the poem and pick up an accurate notion of its intent from the surface, a much richer appreciation of what Espada is really saying can be found in the work’s not-so-visible depths. Why “Jayuya,” for example? For hundreds of years this small, relatively unknown town in the center of Puerto Rico has maintained more ties to the original Taino culture than probably any other community on the island; therefore, it is only fitting that Espada chose it to represent what little is left of an entire way of life once the destructive forces of invading armies and colonizers roll through. Comparing the helpless native Taino people in canoes to scattering lizards as they tried to flee from Spanish soldiers is metaphorically brilliant as well as very telling of the fears the natives experienced at the hands of the invaders. A more subtle, but just as troubling, reference is in the lines, “The Spanish conquered with iron and with words: / ‘Indio Taino.’” Because Columbus and his explorers mistakenly thought they had reached India when, in fact, they had landed in the Caribbean islands, they attached the word “Indio” to the actual name of the people they encountered. Right away, they gave the native people and their entire culture a new title — half Spanish, of course — whether they wanted it or not. In this way, the European invaders were able to overcome and defeat the original settlers not only “with iron” weapons but also with infiltrating words that signaled the crumbling of one culture beneath the rule of another. Proof of how well the disrespectful moniker stuck is evidenced still today in the common use of the terms “Indio Taino” or “Taino Indians,” even by people who can trace ancestry back to the original Tainos. It is also true that many of those people are still offended and angered by the terms.

The gentleness of Espada’s words reflects the gentleness of the Taino people (most historical writings make this claim), even when the imagery alludes to violence and defeat. He describes the island natives as “the people who took / life from the rain that rushed through the trees,” implying a loving and reciprocal relationship with their tropical environment. But the life-giving rain is then compared to “evaporating arrows,” suggesting the ineffectiveness of such crude weaponry when confronted with the firearms and cannons of the strangers from Europe. And it was not only the hapless arrows that evaporated at the hands of the Spanish, but the entire Taino culture as well. Known for their artistic abilities with wood and rock carvings, the Tainos typically depicted human faces with wide circles for eyes and mouths. Here, the poet implies that the art reflected the shock and amazement over how swiftly and easily their lives had been forever altered by the unstoppable conquerors.

It is interesting that a poem which laments the atrocities of political history and the usurpation of a people’s homeland by dogged explorers is titled for such a tiny, vulnerable creature as the hummingbird. Notice that Espada makes it clear that the animal suffered the same abuse of its name as did the Tainos themselves. The line, “So the hummingbird was christened ‘colibrí’” really says, “Here is another example of the Spanish language infiltrating the original Taino.” Even so, the little colibrí is a perfect symbol of the people who were just as defenseless against their invaders as a hummingbird would be against nearly any other being, animal or human (if it could be caught, of course). The poem’s movement from the distant past to the present is smooth and not intrusive, but it very poignantly ties today’s grievous memories to the history that created them. The image of the small bird frantically trying to escape from a place where it does not belong — someone’s house, in this case — is made stronger by Espada’s reference to its “racing Taino heart.” The symbolic link between the colibrí of the present and the Taino people of long ago is one of vulnerability and fear, brought on by the “bellowing god of gunpowder.” For the colibrí, this is just a striking metaphor; for the Tainos, it is all too literal.

Using the hummingbird as a symbol for the original inhabitants of Jayuya may be an obvious metaphorical connection in this poem, but there is a deeper meaning as well. The hummingbird was sacred to the Taino people because it is a pollinator — that is, a life giver, something very important in many native cultures. It was not, then, just its small size and seeming helplessness that motivated Espada to use it as the central metaphor but also the irony in knowing its natural inclination to create life, not take it away. It is not necessary to grasp this subtle information in order to get the idea in “Colibrí,” but its presence is a good example of how a quiet little poem can carry a much more profound and complex message than its conspicuous meaning may reveal. Perhaps other examples are the use of the word “hacienda” — yet another Spanish term — and the mention of the bird’s being caught “between the white walls.” The latter is conceivably a metaphor for the white Europeans who essentially trapped the worlds they invaded within the confines of their own.

The last full stanza of “Colibrí” contains the poem’s softest, most beautiful imagery. And it is not a contradiction to say the descriptions are also the strongest and most provocative. Just as the fraught little hummingbird suddenly “becomes pure stillness,” the poem, too, seems to let its social protests and historical accounting quickly fall silent, giving way to the bare artistry of showing the reader a scene rather than just telling about it. The simple and thoughtful gesture of the “you” in the poem — who it actually is does not matter — cupping the bird, paralyzed with fear, in gentle hands and setting it free through a window is remarkably vivid and satisfying. One can easily see that happening, can readily picture the tiny, stock-still animal, probably hidden within the human hands, suddenly taking flight “into a paradise of sky, / a nightfall of singing frogs.” This peaceful, serene moment is hauntingly at odds with the chilling and sorrowful events it symbolizes. But, that is the power of a quiet poem.

Any reader not yet convinced of the punch that “Colibrí” unloads must surely be tempted by the raw understatement of the poem’s final line. This is where everything comes together: the scattering lizards, the brutal conquering of the Taino people by the Spanish, the hummingbird’s frenzied attempts to escape and its ultimate stillness, the protective hands that set it free. Given all these extraordinary descriptions and the tumultuous history they reference, it is almost anticlimactic to end the poem with such a doleful sentiment as, “If only history / were like your hands.” It sounds terribly pathetic, if not whining and weak. Yet, just the opposite is true. This final line implies a final lamentation, one based solely on an impossible condition. “If only” really means this is not the way it is, and pointing that out in such a soft, subdued tone is both startling and disturbing. Considering what the sentence means — that the human race has chosen to kill its prey rather than to free it — and the vital importance of its message, one may expect it to be shouted from that proverbial soapbox mentioned earlier. At the very least, should it not cry out in despair? No, not if the intent is to leave the reader uneasy and troubled by its eerie subtlety. As is often the case, presenting something unexpected riles more feelings than simply meeting readers’ presumptions. Espada manages to do that throughout “Colibrí” and, in particular, with the last line. His quiet voice is, indeed, despairing, and he need not raise it to be heard.

Source: Pamela Steed Hill, Critical Essay on “Colibrí,” in Poetry for Students, The Gale Group, 2002.

“By writing about historical subjects that are still relevant today, Espada mines the distance between past and present to allow readers to recognize themselves in history’s mirror.”