Episode #146 National Book Award Winner Martín Espada and Floaters - SPECIAL EPISODE

In this special episode, Connor and Jack discuss the 2021 National Book Awards - the long list, the finalists, and the winner "Floaters: Poems" by Martín Espada. They dig into an excerpt from the title poem "Floaters" and discuss how it brings urgent attention to issues of immigration and uses narrative to fight against the dehumanizing language often used to describe those seeking a better life in the United States.

Listen to the National Book Awards Finalist Reading, here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ts4YxshQK10

Learn more about Espada, here: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/martin-espada

Get a copy of "Floaters: Poems" here: https://wwnorton.com/books/9780393541038

Read all of "Floaters" here: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poems/151158/floaters-5d8d0d07466b9

Excerpt from Floaters

By: Martín Espada

"Ok, I’m gonna go ahead and ask ... have ya’ll ever seen floaters this clean. I’m

not trying to be an a$$ but I HAVE NEVER SEEN FLOATERS LIKE THIS,

could this be another edited photo. We’ve all seen the dems and liberal parties

do some pretty sick things."

—Anonymous post, “I’m 10-15” Border Patrol Facebook group

Like a beer bottle thrown into the river by a boy too drunk to cry,

like the shard of a Styrofoam cup drained of coffee brown as the river,

like the plank of a fishing boat broken in half by the river, the dead float.

And the dead have a name: floaters, say the men of the Border Patrol,

keeping watch all night by the river, hearts pumping coffee as they say

the word floaters, soft as a bubble, hard as a shoe as it nudges the body,

to see if it breathes, to see if it moans, to see if it sits up and speaks.

And the dead have names, a feast day parade of names, names that

dress all in red, names that twirl skirts, names that blow whistles,

names that shake rattles, names that sing in praise of the saints:

Say Óscar Alberto Martínez Ramírez. Say Angie Valeria Martínez Ávalos.

See how they rise off the tongue, the calling of bird to bird somewhere

in the trees above our heads, trilling in the dark heart of the leaves.

Say what we know of them now they are dead: Óscar slapped dough

for pizza with oven-blistered fingers. Daughter Valeria sang, banging

a toy guitar. He slipped free of the apron he wore in the blast of the oven,

sold the motorcycle he would kick till it sputtered to life, counted off

pesos for the journey across the river, and the last of his twenty-five

years, and the last of her twenty-three months. There is another name

that beats its wings in the heart of the trees: Say Tania Vanessa Ávalos,

Óscar’s wife and Valeria’s mother, the witness stumbling along the river.

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