Jailbreak of Sparrows, a bold, raw collection of narrative poems by National Book Award winner Martín Espada (Floaters), confronts the reader with images that are unforgettable, visceral and lyrical, and verses that fly “like a jailbreak of sparrows from the poet’s hand.” Espada challenges his audience to see what’s been hidden, offering poignant remembrances of forgotten people and history as he reflects on the turmoil brought by injustice and hatred, but also the beauty and power to be found in love among family, friends and community.
In “Your Card Is the King of Rats,” the speaker describes being a newly minted Legal Aid lawyer, starkly relating the conditions facing many immigrants in the U.S.—“refugees from the land of death squads”—and indicting the complacent and callous response of the Boston Bar Association. In “Banquo’s Ghost in Paterson,” Espada remembers a misunderstood student, Ralph Dennison Jr., whose efforts to take his life in a new direction were cut short by violence before the semester’s end. “Big Bird Died for Your Sins” juxtaposes childhood nostalgia with the loss of innocence in an elegy for Roberto Clemente, the legendary Pittsburgh Pirates player who leveraged his fame to bring attention to racial and economic inequality, and died in a plane crash while personally delivering relief supplies after an earthquake in Nicaragua.
Espada’s unflinching language torments and tantalizes the reader, provoking the heart and soul. Amid the darkness, there is humor and tenderness, too. Poems like “My Mother Sings an Encore,” “Love Song of the Disembodied Head in a Jar” and “Award Ceremony Nightmare with Swedish Meatballs” bubble with wit and warmth, lauding the connections between loved ones. Stirring and provocative, Jailbreak of Sparrows inspires contemplation and is a call to recognize and respond to the unseen and unheard within our communities.
