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Jailbreak of sparrows : poems /

The poems in Jailbreak of Sparrows reveal the ways in which the ordinary becomes monumental, family portraits, politically charged reports and tributes to the unsung. Espada's focus ranges from the bombardment of his family's hometown in Puerto Rico amid an anti-colonial uprising to the mu...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Espada, Martín, 1957- (Author)
Format: Book
Language:English
Published: New York : Alfred A. Knopf, [2025].
Edition:First hardcover edition.
Subjects:
American poetry > 20th century.
Hispanic Americans > Poetry.
Puerto Ricans > Poetry.
Table of Contents:
  • I. Big bird died for your sins. Jailbreak of sparrows
  • My father's practice book
  • Look at this
  • The monster in the lake
  • Big bird died for your sins
  • The lights that burn in the house of many rooms
  • My mother sings an encore
  • The bastard son of King Levinsky
  • El Tiante spins like a stop sign in a hurricane
  • A dream of drunks outsmarting me
  • Better than stealing a necklace of bullets
  • Moderation
  • A busload of screaming children
  • The critic's tongue did not sparkle with the diamond stickpin of wit
  • II. The city wears a coat to bed. Guadalupe's first-year law school tumbao
  • The city wears a coat to bed
  • Your card is the king of rats
  • He could sing, but he couldn't fly
  • The janitor who swept where there was no dust
  • Talking to the horses in the dark
  • Gonzo
  • Banquo's ghost in Paterson
  • Isabela's red dress flutters away
  • On Friday, we will wear blue
  • III. Love song of the disembodied head in a jar. Love song of the moa
  • Love song of the bat with vertigo
  • Love song of the one-eyed fish
  • Love song of the polar bear mascot at McCoy Stadium in Pawtucket, Rhode Island
  • Love song of the atheist marionette
  • Love song of the plátanos maduros
  • Love song of Frankenstein's insomniac monster
  • Love song of the disembodied head in a jar
  • I must be the steamship 'Morro Castle'
  • My beloved the unbeliever
  • My beloved the blasphemer causes a scuffle at the bar
  • Award ceremony nightmare with Swedish meatballs
  • IV. Wake up, Mario. Florencia, again and again
  • Insult
  • The fireflies of Belmont Avenue
  • My Debs, my Eugene
  • The Puerto Rican with the Bolshevik name
  • The last words of Hurricane Hi
  • Officer Mark Dial, who shot Eddie Irizarry, will be fired for insubordination
  • Wake up, Mario, The faces we envision in the scrapbook of the dead
  • The snake
  • Breve pausa
  • The iguanas skitter through the cemetery by the sea.