María Luisa Arroyo
María Luisa Arroyo (?-present) is a Puerto Rican poet raised in Springfield, Massachusetts. She received a BA from Colby College, an MA from Tufts University, and an MFA from Pine Manor College. Arroyo is the author of Gathering Words/Recogiendo palabras and was named the inaugural Poet Laureate of Springfield, Massachusetts in 2014. Source
gathering words
para mami
One day I will write you a letter
after I have gathered enough words
I have heard
pop! pop! pop!
like little soap bubbles escaping
the animated mouths
of the women who share
pieces of gossip like bombones
in la lavandería every Sunday
One day I will write you a letter
after I have gathered enough words
that blossom without thorns
in painted mouths, in someone else’s countries…
In my corner, I listen to how voices ring
without the sting of bofetadas
and how they undulate above
gushing water and swirling clothes
in machines that vibrate in la lavandería
One day, I will write you a letter
after I have gathered enough words
and enough courage
to let them ring in my mute dreams
until they sing to me: Write us. Así.
In your childhood tongue. Recóbranos. Recover us.
At that time, I will be able to return without fear
to la lavandería with my bags of clothes
and enough words and surrender myself to the bubbles.
Published:
2008
Length:
Regular
Literary Movements:
Contemporary
Anthology Years:
2020
2023
Themes:
Ars Poetica
Bilingual
Family
Immigration
Literary Devices:
Anaphora
a figure of speech in which words repeat at the beginning of successive clauses, phrases, or sentences
Epistolary
(of a literary work) in the form of letters
Onomatopoeia
A word that, when spoken aloud, has a sound that is associated with the thing or action being named.
Personification
the attribution of human qualities to a non-human thing
Sensory Detail
words used to invoke the five senses (vision, hearing, taste, touch, smell)
Simile
a comparison between two unlike things using the words “like” or “as”