Poems by Esteves
April 11, 2018, by Bryce
The poems by Sandra Marie Esteves that we had to read for today’s class were all unique, intriguing, and quite truthfully very depressing. Some of the poems I could connect to more, while others were about things that I couldn’t identify with at all. But, all of her poems were interesting and moving, even if it was about something I couldn’t understand. Esteves’s poems are all clearly dealing with things she identifies with in her own life. Her struggles as a woman, as someone of Latina heritage, and as someone without privilege living in New York. These themes play a central role throughout her poetry.
The poem “Manhattan” is something I can relate to. Living in Manhattan can often be an isolating and depressing city, especially without a support system. Manhattan with it’s grey sidewalks, skies, and buildings can often become one monochromatic blur that is muddled with consumerism and harshness. Although the city can have so much to offer, such as the poetry that Esteves writes, it can also be “bleak”. It can be an “isle of spit and hate lifetime of tunnels air stinking of humid grease blinding glitter carrying a false name sad betrayal to the great spirit” as Esteves describes it. The way Esteves writes this, without punctuation almost as if it’s all in one breath, mirrors this chaotic side of Manhattan. The side of it that is not only materially gross, but also that can be vapid and fake. I have felt this way about Manhattan, when I’m already feeling upset everything bad about living here is magnified. The people bumping into you on the sidewalk, the astronomical rent check you have to make out to your landlord, the MTA never being on time. It’s refreshing to see a poet talk about Manhattan in a way that is not glamorous, but realistic.
I also related to the poem “Capital”, which is all about the fact that we are charged for everything we have or do, and we have to pay all because we were born. As a independent human being, our lives revolve around capital, something I never thought of when I was little. I have to pay rent for my apartment so I can live in New York so that I can go to college, which I also have to pay for. I have to pay for groceries so I can make food so I can eat. Almost every minute of my day I am dealing in capital, even as I write this response on my laptop, which I paid for and am paying to use WiFi on.
A poem I couldn’t quite identify with, but that I found powerful, was “From Fanon”. It deals with the nature of oppression and contradictions. Humans came onto this world all from the same place, “our kindred was the earth”. And yet, as humankind evolved, oppression and contradictions came out. It was the europeans who enslaved “others”, a created notion, and became their master. These others became slaves and due this lost their own identity, “assimilating our master’s values” to the extent that it still persists today. Whole communities are still oppressed, whole cultures and histories have been wiped out, and all due the perceived authority of one kind of human over another. Although I have not ever personally been a victim to this, I see how this divide continues to plague our society today.