The first time I got season tickets to an event series I learned their hidden secret--they force you to go events. Otherwise, come the night of the event you are just too tired to get off the couch, let alone go listen to poetry. So despite that I'm falling asleep on my feet thing, Barb brought dinner and put the kids to bed, and I went to hear Martin Espada read poetry.

Alabanza.

I think that word means praise. He used it as a chorus to one of his poems and sang it with such conviction and honor that three days later it rings in my ears. I like his poetry; I don't adore it, but his reading style is very effective.

Let's start with the fact that he's funny. Martin Espada is a Brooklyn born Puerto Rican political poet. I once had a teacher tell me you can't write political poetry. It's just strident and bad. Espada can be strident, but he leavened the reading with jokes. That way the politics came on strong but not heavy-handed. I mean the poem about being taken home to meet the in-laws was a total rip on racism, but it was also very funny.

His poems are easy to follow, both on the page and off. I've been bumping into his work for years now. He joked about being the token Puerto Rican in all the anthologies. Possibly. His work stood out for me because he talked about real people and injustices they face, as he put it, the fly on the wall style of poetry as opposed to the navel gazing sort. He also has a thing for long titles like "For the Jim Crow Mexican Restaurant in Cambridge, Massachusetts, Where My Cousin Esteban was Forbidden to Wait Tables Because He Wears Dreadlocks." I'd like to write titles like that.

Sometimes I go to a reading and the work just can't stand up; the intros basically explain the poems away. His work stood up, but really it was his theatrics that made the pieces memorable. He reads like an actor including intonation, pauses, and facial expressions.

I came home centered and refreshed.