After several years of asking for semester leaves, I gave up my tenured post. Alvarez says, “I toiled and troubled about what to do. She had been presented with the opportunity to fulfill her dream of being a writer, but she also discovered she had a love for education. That same year, Julia also “earned a tenure at Middlebury College.” Also, according to her website, when she forty-one years old, her agent, Susan Bergholz, “found a small press, Algonquin Books, and a wonderful editor, Shannon Ravenel, willing to give “a new voice” a chance.”Īt this point, Julia came to a crossroads-be a writer or be a teacher. In 1991, Alvarez published her first book, “How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents,” which was a story very similar to her own. But, Julia pushed on, and eventually, after her schooling, she pursued a writing career. She knew “classroom English,” but didn’t know and understand everyday, informal English. In New York City, the education system proved to be a struggle for Julia. The Alvarez family fled back to New York City in 1960, only four months before the leaders of the underground activity, the Mirabal sisters, were assassinated by Trujillo’s men. Julia’s father, who had previously been involved with an underground organization with plans to assassinate the dictator of the Dominican, Trujillo, became involved again, to the point where the family had to leave. They then moved back to the Dominican Republic, where they had originally lived. The Alvarez family lived there until Julia was three months old. I dug it real, real strong.Julia Alvarez was born in New York City in 1950. I needed that wisdom, to know that I wasn't following in vain. ![]() ![]() And inside this poem-under and over the words-there is wisdom: "We arrive where we were promised." The poet did not disappoint me, as I followed the journey. Along the way, the poet layers lyric subjectivity with imagery that is at once new, but somehow, familiar to someplace previously unknown inside me. "On Sundays" is a poem that literally takes me on a journey with the speaker, past landscape and memory and confusion into revelation. Knows that I'm there, giving a chance to the poem, even if I don't know where I am going-even if I don't want to know where I am going. I want to know that the poet, while writing for him- or herself, also writes for me. Sure, I lap up the language-gobble it up-but just as I admit that I have a weakness for beauty, I also have a weakness for understanding-or at least, for a poet's empathy with the reader. But language alone cannot carry a poem for me. I need the startling weft of words moving under and over each other in a poem. I admit that I am a sucker for a poem that exhibits beauty and luminosity. The language of a poem is what draws me in. Reprinted by permission of Stuart Bernstein Representation for Artists, New York, NY. What we longed for in ourselves, each other.Ĭopyright © 2015 by Julia Alvarez. In the distance, spired with whitecaps, belled Instead I practiced patience in the face ofĪnd it lay before us: vast and blue, roaring The skill of choosing predictable outcomes. Or sprinkled with confetti colors, honing Ice cream under sliding glass doors, deliberations With its candycane-striped awning, its blastįirst hand, the cartons of imported ices, Which might be why I chose it every time Or coming after us, as we raced up the beach, Opening for boats, toys, kids-spitting them backĪs driftwood, shell shards, tiny skeletons The way the sea was hungry, its ragged mouths We meant to get to, what we hungered for, Our chins and swimsuits-as if to teach us The corner, for cement-errands he omitted ![]() Required a stop at the almacén, just around To pick-just the right size, the right shape, The trunk with river stones that took hours Whom we belonged to, the choice disguised
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