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Reviews
of Naomi
Ayala's
Wild Animals on the Moon..
Reviews From the back cover…
“Naomi Ayala
writes poems like water, a clear, strong current, sometimes
tranquil, sometimes furious, but always swirling with life.”
--Martín
Espada, Puerto Rican Author
Ayala’s poems
are bold, surrealistic, freewheeling.
She plays with placement on the page.
She pares punctuation and capitalization, and often uses
enjambment to propel her text forward… Ayala [is] courageous
in the agenda she sets for herself: racism, poverty,
immigration, relationships and separation, the power of words,
the struggles of women, and violence in individual lives, in
neighborhoods, and in other countries…
Her voice is at times soft, at times ferocious.
She is a woman who will be heard.”
--Margaret
Huntington, “Ruptured Lives,” American book review,
Nov./Dec. 1998
“Vivid, sharp
verse from a Puerto Rican living on the mainland and writing
about those on the edge.”
--Margo
Gutiérrez, Mexican American Library Program, Benson Latin
American Collection, University of Texas at Austin, Selective
List of Acquisitions, Spring 1998
“Naomi Ayala is
fearless in her debut collection of poetry. She writes about
cultural pride with succinct description and clarity. She views
turmoil through the eyes of the oppressed [and] gives an
identity to the unknown immigrant, the faceless woman… Her
strong feminine voice is raised to heroism through expressive
and courageous writing… Her poetry has a body that dances, a
rhythm… a voice that demands to be heard.”
--Speed
Reader, Weekly alibi, August 1997
“These poems
explore issues of racial identity, independence, and hope as
Ayala explores her experiences of being Puerto Rican on the
mainland and all this entails.
Her poems provide powerful free verse testimony to the
Puerto Rican experience in this country and hold both literary
and social value.”
--Midwest
Book Review
“These are very
political poems in the sense that Adrienne Rich once said
‘There is no difference between the personal and the
political.’”
--berniE-zine Reviews * * *
* *
updated 9 April 2008 |
