Words Chosen for the Wall

Harold J. Recinos

• Publisher: Resource Publications
• Year: 2024
• Print ISBN:
  9798385220021
  9798385220038
• eBook ISBN:
  9798385220045
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Poetry
• Index: Literature

Words Chosen for the Wall is poetry testifying to the deepest elements in the American dream casting a light on cultural diversity, experiences of exclusion and belonging, and the walls of dividing hostility in society. It explores new paths that leap for unity, empathy, and hope. In this collection, poems give voice to experiences in a divided world and reach for beauty, unity, and emotional clarity. Like graffiti on walls, the poems call out various and different kinds of abuses and visions of life to quote Eliot “at the still point of the turning world.” Each poem creates a space for the reader to bring their own baggage to a setting that questions idealized notions of community by offering lyrical words that speak to realities that are often ignored, or worse, forgotten. In this work, poems guide readers to the terrain of imagination that is a fine tool for repairing what is broken in society and that ceaselessly pleads for a solidarity of difference. These poems motivate dreams of a different existence and decolonize the imagination from the limitations of a single culture and understanding of life together.

Table of contents

• Title Page
• Superior
• The Islands
• Tyrants
• Treasure
• Gaza
• October
• Rivers
• Fine Day
• Evening
• Amor
• Decolonial
• New Americans
• Conversion
• Headstone
• Lady
• Migrant Child
• The Poor
• Tired
• Moon
• The Country
• Flea Market
• Awake
• Savior, Savior
• Return
• The Massacre
• Campesinos
• Self-Portrait
• Sacred Mother
• Restless
• Broken English Dream
• The Botanica
• Solitude
• The Knot
• Things
• The Steps
• Harlem Days
• The Morning
• Evening
• Speech
• The Junkie
• Hanging Out
• Together
• The Caravan
• The Gift
• The Martyr
• Silence
• The Trip
• Airport
• Baroque
• Waiting Room
• Zip Gun
• The Tenement
• The Letter
• The Backyard
• Flaco
• Machu Picchu
• Today
• Old Church
• The Nation
• The Cart
• The Skiff
• Sleep
• Waiting
• The Boy
• Homecoming
• The Bridge
• Kitchen Sink
• The Innocent
• Terror
• The Slaughter
• Words
• The End
• Night
• Shots
• The Story
• Moonlight
• Waiting
• River Bank
• Jimmy
• The Veteran
• Psalm 71
• Darkness
• Certainty
• The Child
• The Library
• Cloudy
• Christmas Carol
• Frosty
• Daughter
• Times Square
• Remember
• Abandoned
• Perspective
• Christmas
• Piety
• Nuestra Señora
• The Wall
• Seasonal Letter
• The Walk
• Lament
• Deus, ubi es
• New Year
• Waiting
• The Season
• Listen
• Potomac River
• Valentine’s Day
• Snowy Day
• Catholic School
• Americano
• The Visitor
• Breakfast
• Father
• Swimming Hole
• The Future
• Sunday
• The Stench
• The Walk
• The Boys
• Lost
• The Kids
• The Call
• Fashion
• Few Words
• Little Girl
• Love
• Confession
• Sleepless
• The Prison
• Books
• Sweetness
• Still Voice
• Twists
• Morning
• Crucifixion
• Mr. Ex-President
• Romero
• The Woods
• Speak
• Memory
• Touch
• El Salvador
• Faces
• Spanish Kind
• Vida
• Illness
• Disappeared
• Strange
• Citizens Beware
• For Heaven’s Sake
• Good Friday
• Jazz
• The Child
• The Block
• Piety
• Hidden