Emplumada

“Four Portraits of Fire” by Lorna Dee Cervantes (1982)

In this poem, also from the collection Emplumada, Cervantes employs and considers some of the same elements and images woven through “Emplumada”—wind and birds, for example. The color “umber” appears here, too, as something without heat, drained of life.

“To My Brother” by Lorna Dee Cervantes (1982)

Another poem from Emplumada, this poem serves as witness to an impoverished childhood in an urban environment, as well as tribute to the beloved brother who lived it, too. In the final stanza, the speaker envisions the dreams of the siblings flying over the city “skyline like crazy meteors” (Lines 22-23).

“Love of My Flesh, Living Death” by Lorna Dee Cervantes (1991)

From the Cables of Genocide: Poems on Love and Hunger (1991) from Arte Público Press, this poem from Cervantes’ second collection uses imagery of feathers and birds to create an elegy for a lost or absent love. The dedication, after García Lorca, suggests that the poet has written the poem with an eye toward the surrealism and symbolism for which the Spanish poet, Lorca, is known.

“To Live in the Borderlands” by Gloria Anzaldúa (1987)