Poetry is like a song, like a psalm, like a prayer. Poetry is
different things to many people, and April being Poetry Month,
The Latina Book
Club is celebrating by featuring Latino poets all week long.
“All I wanted was the impossible:
To be the who I am in a land
unafraid of the me I have become.”—Frank
Varela
DIASPORA: SELECTED AND NEW POEMS
By Frank Varela
Arte Publico Press
Given all that has been happening
with Puerto Rico this past year, we searched for a book of poems that spoke to
us about the island; about being a part of it and not; about dreams and
reality; about success and disappointment; about love and loss.
Summary: In this collection of 55 poems, Varela writes
about growing up Puerto Rican in Brooklyn, noting that there are two types of
Puerto Ricans: “those born on the island, / others like me, / the children of
exiles.” Pondering the universal sentiment of immigrant children, he notes that
he was considered a spic in the United States and a gringo in the land of his
parent’s birth. Expressing love and appreciation for his Puerto Rican family
and culture, Varela’s poems reflect on the universal joys and pains of everyday
life. This collection contains a mix of previously published and new poems that
offers a survey of the poet’s work from 1988 to the present.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Frank Varela was born and raised in Brooklyn,
New York City, and he was educated in Puerto Rico and the Midwest. Varela lived
in Oak Park, Illinois and in Cleveland before his latest move to
southern New Mexico, where he resides with his wife. He has published four volumes of
poetry, including Serpent Underfoot (March
Abrazo Press, 1993) and Bitter Coffee (March
Abrazo Press, 2001), Caleb’s Exile (ELF Creative
Workshop, 2009), and Diaspora: New and Selected Poems (Arte Publico Press, 2016).
His children's stories have been
published in Front Row and in publications
by Arte Publico Press. Other noteworthy journals featuring his work include Another Chicago Magazine, Halogen, Hammers, The Americas Review.
He is also featured in the anthology Power Lines (1999),
which commemorates the first decade of the Guild Complex, its poets, and its
publishing wing, Tia Chucha Press. Mr. Varela holds degrees from the Catholic
University of Puerto Rico, Central Michigan University, and the University of
Wisconsin at Madison. He was named Illinois Hispanic Librarian of the Year in
1997, and he his writing has earned him grants and recognition from the
Illinois Arts Council.
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