Home Movies of Narcissus

by Rane Arroyo and Cleo Qian

A first-generation Latino born in Chicago, Rane Arroyo is a leading poeta puertorrique o and playwright whose readership transcends his ethnicity. In Home Movies of Narcissus, his fourth collection of... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0816521956
• ISBN13: 9780816521951
• Release Date: May 2002
• Publisher: University of Arizona Press
• Length: 77 Pages
• Weight: 0.35 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.3" x 6.1" x 8.4"

Customer Reviews

forbidden, erotic, fun.... a journey that you'll enjoy

Puerto Rican poet and playwright, Rane Arroyo could be introduced with several more identifiers before his name. Perhaps the poet himself would add titles such as Intellectual, Gay, Dreamer, Comedian, American, and Friend. Invoking this multitude of identities, Rane Arroyo's collection of poems, Home Movies of Narcissus, playfully explores realms that are forbidden, imagined, and erotic. There are few borders in Arroyo's writing: his poems seamlessly fuse humor with sincerity as they capture the truths of loneliness, sex, culture, and history. At times merely a stream of consciousness while other times careful constructed stanzas, Arroyo's poems are structured as diversely as the stories which they reveal. Arroyo's poetry artfully recreates its subjects in terms of the emotions that they illicit, not just the linear definitions of or societal reactions to them. Such multi-dimensional reflection and writing are a testament to Arroyo, a poet with strong identities and a deep personal awareness. I think that you will find your own adventure as you read Home Movies of Narcissus. This book of poems reads like a cultural biography of America, featuring a multitude of fascinating worlds and people, both real and imagined. In the first section of the book "Yes, Si, Aha," poems such as "The Cousins" and "Delicious Parable" articulate truths of Arroyo's Puerto Rican identity during the author's childhood and adult years. In the poem "Cousins," Arroyo references his "tropics-starved parents" (9) while recounting a homoerotic conversation among childhood friends. This scene is among countless others in the collection which juxtapose multiple identities, in this case exploring notions of cultural relocation as a Latino and internal exile as a gay adolescent. The reader can only smile as he is left to ponder "Zorro's erection" or a childhood game about "the addict's attic" in the hometown "cha-cha-cha Chicago." Classic poetic devices such as alliteration describe unconventional or even taboo subjects, creating poetry that is both interesting and entertaining to read. Such poems relive moments which border between nostalgia and dysfunction, adding to the lure of Arroyo's dynamic writing. The poem "Delicious Parable" details a poignant sacrifice, an impoverished Puerto Rican mother who struggles to provide a traditional meal for her son. The speaker in the poem cries when he realizes that the dried codfish "with chance bones in it" is the "only inheritance she can give." As he describes the memory, Arroyo's tone is playful yet upfront. He avoids making a political statement about poverty (or any of the other numerous issues in the book). Rather, Arroyo's identity as a poet and his powerful honesty about life experiences (and dreams) awaken the reader without offending him. In the section of poems entitled "The Mask Museum" Arroyo reinvents traditional notions of identity, death, and art. In "Bad Disguises," a clever poem about Hallow

Poetry worth canonizing!

Rane Arroyo has a quality refined by love and talent, which he has released on paper in the form of this collection. His humor, his emotions and his love for words makes him a modern-day legend. I am a fan!