Another America / Otro America --by Barbara Kingsolver

 Nonfiction / Poetry

160 pages

5 stars

 

I have read this book twice. I found myself in thrall after the first reading, her poetry stayed with me for years. After this second reading, I found myself amazed at how fresh it was, how relevant to our days and times. I had forgotten so much; I just remembered the beauty of her writing. This time I saw for the first time again the pain, the blood, but still, the beauty.

 

This book speaks of love, of tenderness, of cruelty, of loss. This book speaks of life in all its beauty and its grit, and does so with a poetic elegance accessible to anyone who reads it.

 

Although I do not speak Spanish, I enjoyed having the left-hand page in Spanish, and the right hand page in English. Someday maybe I’ll learn Spanish, and then I can read all the even numbered pages.

 

This time through, I read it in conjunction with another book of poems, also with a great deal of Spanish, but within the poems, Songs Older Than Any Known Singer —by John Phillip Santos. The books blended and complemented each other as if they had been written one for the other.