Poetry Like Bread

I found this book eight years ago on the day of San Jordi. I walked into a local bookstore in Gainesville, FL with the light liberty that that day I was going to buy myself any book that I wanted. Not a used book, a library book, or something on sale, but something new, shiny and possibly extravagant. I was in my last year of college, single, idealistic, plotting a move overseas and feeling rather free.
Across the Atlantic Ocean book sellers in Catalonia were honoring their patron saint with a festival of books and roses. A festival so appealing to my romantic sentiments and tied to my own heritage could not be ignored. Some reckless book buying seemed entirely justified.
I wandered the aisles skimming the titles, tracing my fingers over the binding, the colors. I stood in front of the art books, literature, travel. I moved into social studies, women's studies, anthropology; sections that only seem to flourish in college towns.

I settled on this one, poetry, out of my usual range but close to my heart. It felt just right and I took it home. It's a collection of poetry with a social message. It's poetry that cries and laughs at the world we live in. It's a book I eventually took to Spain and back again and pull out now and again to feel inspired. I read it also to feel understood when I see our world and need to laugh and cry in order to keep the humanity of it. Is it the anti-immigrant legislation in AZ? The cut backs in Mental Health funding in Florida? The oil spilling into our Waters? Something in me is needing poetry today.

Poetry, like bread, es de todos

The poem that gives the title is the one below. I love it:

Como Tú

Por Roque Dalton

Yo como tú
amo el amor,
la vida,
el dulce encanto de las cosas
el paisaje celeste de los días de enero.

También mi sangre bulle
y río por los ojos
que han conocido el brote de las lágrimas.
Creo que el mundo es bello,
que la poesía es como el pan,
de todos.

Y que mis venas no terminan en mí,
sino en la sangre unánime
de los que luchan por la vida,
el amor,
las cosas,
el paisaje y el pan,
la poesía de todos.
_____________________________
Like You

By Roque Dalton
(Translated from Spanish by Jack Hirschman)

Like you I
love love, life, the sweet smell
of things, the sky-
blue landscape of January days.

And my blood boils up
and I laugh through eyes
that have known the buds of tears.
I believe the world is beautiful
and that poetry, like bread, is for everyone.

And that my veins don’t end in me
but in the unanimous blood
of those who struggle for life,
love,
little things,
landscape and bread,
the poetry of everyone.

Poetry Like Bread: Poets of the Political Imagination from Curbstone Press Edited by Martin Espada