PAT MORA POETRY

DIZZY IN YOUR EYES: POEMS ABOUT LOVE

Photo Retrieved from Amazon.com

A. BIBLIOGRAPHY

Mora, Pat. DIZZY IN YOUR EYES: POEMS ABOUT LOVE. New York, NY: Alfred A. Knopf, 2010. ISBN 97803758437544

B. CRITICAL ANALYSIS

Pat Mora presents a collection of fifty poems about the trials and tribulations of love. Through the eyes of a variety of points of view, she connects her poetry with the overall theme of love. She includes points of view from teenage boys, teenage girls, and even love that has passed through the years. Each poem stands independently in this sense, however, Mora manages to maintain cohesiveness throughout the collection by traveling through the cycle of love. From the exciting beginning stages, to painful break-ups, and back to finding love again. Her collection provides a comforting assurance that love occurs in cycles, and that part of the process is discovering oneself.
She incorporates culture into the poem by including Spanish words sporadically throughout her poems, which are italicized for greater emphasis. This feature highlights her cultural self-awareness and provides a point of surprising imagery in some of her poems. This characteristic of the collection may make it more appealing for students who are still becoming comfortable with reading in English. Additionally, it may help to briefly review the format of the book with a young reader, as at first it takes a few poems to understand who the speaker of each poem is.

Mora acknowledges the difficulty that some poetic forms present, and she explains her approach. In Love Haiku, she provides a description of the traditional form, and goes on to explain how she approached the form in her poem. This aspect of the book can encourage a poetry-resistant teen or even adult to appreciate the different styles of poetic forms. Through this acknowledgement and explanation, she allows her poetry to be more enjoyable.  

She includes a substantial variety of poetic forms such as clerihew, list poems, dialogue form, blank verse, tanka, letter style, pantoum, sestina, villanelle, sonnet, cinquain, anaphora, haiku, acrostic, triolet, blues, couplet, lyric, ode, oda, and song. Although these poetic forms may be unfamiliar to the reader, the different styles add a novel touch to each poem. They may even inspire a writer to take a risk and try a new style when writing poetry!

The poems are arranged into a small and compact book, which make this a fun book to keep handy by a bedside or hidden away in a backpack. The cover is a black and white spiral illustration, with touches of red. It naturally attracts the eyes to the book, and provides a subtle hint for the tone of the book. It is mature of enough for a teen, and equally so for any adult. The poems are presented on the right side of the book, and there are random geometric shape designs on the opposite page.

C. HIGHLIGHT POEM

Introduce this poem during the week of Valentine's Day.  Discuss what took place in the poem and how they may relate to it.  Once the poem has been read several times, use the follow-up activity for writing.

Revenge X 3

I slipped a note to three-
the same note-Romeo me,
experienced at poetry.

All three were sweetly pretty.
Each read my words, smiled slyly.
I felt clever and happy.

My life would be a movie-
calls to make, hands to hold lightly,
poems to write nightly.

But one day, three cam frowning toward me,
no hint of beauty.  Running, I yelled loudly,
"Your frowns will make you ugly!"

Each crowned me-not that lightly.
"Rat!" they shouted, pounding fiercely,
shouted-pounded, "Triple-header!!" furiously.  

After reading the poem as a class, separate the girls and boys on opposite sides of the room.  Allow them to discuss within their own gender their perception of what happened in the poem.  Then, have the two groups face each other (like a debate), and share their ideas with each other.   The teacher can act as a facilitator, and can ask questions to keep the discussion going!