Wine-sipping syllables, a communion of bones, impetuous pinches of chile, and parrot-sassy guacamole. With a mélange of aromas and tastes, colors and sounds, award-winning poet Pat Mora invites readers into her home in this new collection of forty-nine odes. Inspired by Pablo Neruda’s Odas Elemantales and reinvented with a Latina identity, Mora celebrates the ordinary in lyrics that are anything but. Her poetry is the poetry of space—house patterns and adobe constructions—and the human rhythms that happen inside. It is also the poetry of what she loves—chocolate, books, dandelions, church bells, hope, courage, and even rain. Thick with the microcultures of foodstuffs, family, places, regions, deities, spirits, and literary figures, Mora’s adobe universe is luscious and tactile, elemental and dynamic.
From family gossip and beauty secrets, to women darning hand-me-downs, to reluctant hands carrying bodies across borders, Mora traverses the tangled threads of culture, community, family, gender, and injustice. Her vivid observations together with her deft handling of symmetry and meter make her poetry uniquely insightful, subtle, and elegant. Sprinkled with Spanish and plenty of spice, each ode is a sensory flurry of mind and body. Together they make a cauldron of flavorful, simmering language. They are meant to be savored as they slowly stir the soul.
From family gossip and beauty secrets, to women darning hand-me-downs, to reluctant hands carrying bodies across borders, Mora traverses the tangled threads of culture, community, family, gender, and injustice. Her vivid observations together with her deft handling of symmetry and meter make her poetry uniquely insightful, subtle, and elegant. Sprinkled with Spanish and plenty of spice, each ode is a sensory flurry of mind and body. Together they make a cauldron of flavorful, simmering language. They are meant to be savored as they slowly stir the soul.
Pat Mora is an author, speaker, educator, and literacy advocate. She has written more than forty-five books for adults, teens, and children. The recipient of two honorary doctorates and a poetry fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts, she lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico.
Ode to Guacamole
Ode to Readers
Ode to Kitchens
Ode to Chiles
Ode to Chocolate
Ode to Arroz con Leche
Ode to Spirits
Ode to Names
Ode to a Book
Ode to Pablo Neruda
Ode to a Friend
Ode to a Cricket
Ode to a Child
Ode to Toes
Ode to Dandelions
Ode to a Sprite
Ode to a Bumblebee
Ode to a Jardín Mexicano
Ode to Sor Juana
Ode to Words
Ode to Our Lady of Guadalupe
Ode to an Apple
Ode to a Church Bell
Ode to Jesus Laughing
Ode to a Cottonwood
Ode to Desire
Ode to Play
Ode to Hope
Ode to Courage
Ode to Ancianas
Ode to El Paso
Ode to Workers
Ode to Rain
Ode to a Desert Willow
Ode to Sunflowers
Ode to Santa Fe
Ode to St. Francis of Assisi
Ode to Miracles
Ode to Another Chance
Ode to Skin
Ode to Women
Ode to Tulips
Ode to Lemons
Ode to Tea
Ode to a Pond
Ode to Clouds
Ode to the Earth
Ode to a Kiva Fireplace
Acknowledgments
