In this bi-lingual collection of poems, Luz de Todos los Tiempos / Light of All Times, Mexican poet Moisés Villavicencio Barras explores the idea of crossing from a multitude of perspectives, and comes again and again from his various journeys, back to the central figures of his parents. This is a book of love and homage, as well as a tender but honest exploration of what it means to grow into adulthood and reconcile oneself with the past. Writing of his family and childhood in Mexico and also of his own children growing up in the Midwest, Villavicencio Barras has a strong sense of himself as survivor: “I am the one who still walks the prairies / inventing my self / speaking the language of things” he writes in “Ancestros”/ “Ancestors.” Having lived now in Wisconsin for over ten years, Villavicencio Barras moves between languages and cultures, between the natural world and the city, between dreams, memories and the day’s sharper delineations. As poet Roberta Hill puts it, “his self-reflective vision of living at once in the North and South awakens us to what is near, just outside the window, and to what is far, the jaguar in the ravine.” Distance brings desire; as Wisconsin’s Fourth Poet Laureate, Bruce Dethlefsen, acknowledges, these poems give us “a dark, familiar theater of heartfelt longing.” And yet, the poet responds by finding gifts in the mundane, “like that small rainbow of car oil on the sidewalk.” Sample poem, in Spanish and English: LAVAPLATOS Yo miraba las manos de mi madre ir de a un lado a otro de los platos. El limón se comía la grasa y la ceniza el cochambre. El agua sucia era para los jazminez y los geranios. Pensé muchas veces en sus raíces retorciéndose como los intestinos de los gatos atropellados en la noche de mi barrio. Sordo escuché las quejas de mi madre hacia los posillos de estrecha boca y los vasos de plástico. La vi sangrar lágrimas en monosílabos. Mi padre me dijo mientras se afeitaba: Los platos, los desperdicios y rosarios son asuntos de mujeres. Uno hace las cosas duras que le tocan al hombre: Encontrar los yacimientos de peces, masticar tabaco y tirar las redes. Hoy yo también me quejo de la redondez estúpida de los platos de tantos vasos y de tantas tazas. DISHWASHER I used to watch my mother's hands going round and round on dinner plates. Lemon ate grease and ashes grime, filthy water fed jasmines and geraniums. I often thought about their roots twisting like the intestines of cats killed at night in my barrio. Deaf, I listened to my mother complain about our glasses with narrow mouths and our plastic mugs. I saw her bleed tears in monosyllables. My father said to me while he shaved: Dishes, leftovers, and rosaries are women's business. We men do the hard work: Fishing, hunting and chewing tobacco. Now I complain about the roundness of dishes, so many cups, so many glasses.

Luz de Todos los Tiempos / Light of All Times

Literature & Fiction

Villavicencio Barras, Moisés

Poetry

Cowfeather Press

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Books by Villavicencio Barras, Moisés

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Luz de Todos los Tiempos / Light of All Times