Latina Poet Takes On Texas, LA, Nostalgia And Violence

The numerous speakers in Thelma T. Reyna’s poetry chapbook, Breath & Bone (Finishing Line Press, 2011), oscillate between the temporary flesh of nostalgia (breath) and the spiritual threat of violence (bone). In this respect, Reyna’s poetry is working-class testament penned by the “caliche/dust” of western Texas dustbowls. However, Reyna also traffics in the grit of the polis (“By the L.A. Freeway”)  and even the ocean of affection that exists between mother and child (“On Loan”). Moreover,  in terms of subject, Reyna’s range might prove to be more of a detriment than an obstacle; Reyna can write in a number of registers, but that doesn’t necessarily mean the cacophony is not jarring.

Reyna’s poems are fierce and reflective without fear of embarrassment, and despite their shortcomings, in the very least, they are humble without being meek. In “Growing up Dusty in a Small Texas Town,” the speaker recounts growing up dirt-poor in western Texas, “legs leaping potholes, tripping on dirt clods.” It was so dusty that even “Grandma’s rags couldn’t stem the tide of constant coats/ of dust as we grew up in our small Texas town.” And yet, the nostalgia Reyna conjures is of a complex childhood where “children with patent leather shoes that stayed black” belong to the “asphalt roads, mown lawns” but are still “bound” to the other children by “chalkboard dust.” Reyna gives us a reality in which children are oblivious to “what it meant to be growing up dusty.”

“Quilts” has a similar aesthetic and theme: poor kids so poor they don’t know how poor they are (and subsequently how “good” they have it). The speaker tells the reader that her mother “plugged up the coffee spout/ with foil after dinner/ to keep the cockroaches out” and “laid a pile/ of patchwork quilts on the chilly floor” for the speaker to “sleep on and urinate.” Reyna has a way of mingling the nostalgic with the perfunctory, the sensory and the repulsive. The children, the cockroaches, the quilts, “colorful stinky banners,” are all nuisances that get through “the plug to mess/ her brew.” But, the speaker’s mother still drinks the bitter, and one could even argue that the bitter might even taste better because of the nuisances the speaker’s mother has had to overlook.

In “By the L.A. Freeway,” Reyna presents the reader with two tableaus of a “Young black man,” that frequents the highway offramp panhandling spare change “when driver after driver at the light looks away and pretends he isn’t there.” The poem is also a meditation on the abnegation and erosion of the self that transpires when one joins the vagrant underclass, “blotting out the day, the red/ desert nights.” The speaker is equally repelled and attracted by the sight of the homeless man that has traded in his youth, his quotient of vigor, on a “grimy/ hand-scrawled bit of corrugated crap that lies: ‘Please/ help a vet. Hungry, sick.” The speaker vacillates between sympathy, “his nighttime meal on a piece of rag pinned down with/ stones,” to quizzical indignation, “Too young, too healthy for sympathy, they/ say” but no resolution is reached, no bigger truth revealed.

The poems in Breath & Bone (2011) are perfect for collections which seek to accession independent literature produced by independent presses. In lieu of how independent presses are changing the landscape of publishing technology, this title seems like the type of poetry you hope was getting published.  Breath & Bone (2011) would also make a welcome addition to collections that accession zines and poetry chapbooks like the one at Barnard College in New York City. Presses like Finishing Line champion burgeoning authors that are just making their mark pushing their stories.

While Reyna’s collection is not perfect, it is a refreshing artifact that proves the literary world is still hale and healthy. And, even though you might have better odds of finding a shark on a train than make money selling poetry, if it is your desire to read something you can truly sink your teeth into, then Reyna’s chapbook is just the codex morsel you’ve been searching for.