Ben Briggance

In Martin Espadas poem “Four Sandwiches” JC is a very intersting and important charictor. There seems to be a lot to JC, a lot covered up. Espada gives hints about who JC is for instance, “JC sings his work farm songs on the street” and “JC was called the rack/ at the work farm.”. Espada writes his poetry in such a way that makes you want to know more about the charictor. “ Once a sudden fist crushed the cartilage of his nose across his face but JC only grinned”. This shows JC dose not feel pain, or at least dose not care. Something has gotton him to the point where violence dose not harm him. He seems to be almost broken in a way. I find the way Martin Espada writes about Jc to be very interesting. Luci Tapahonso had a different way of talking about her charictors. In “All I Want”, the old lady has a very simplistic way of going about things. When Luci Tapahonso asks the lady how many cups in the recipe, she replies with “ ah yaa ah” “I don’t Measure with cups./ I know by my hands,/ Just a little like this see?’ I really enjoy that quote. It shows how sometimes we can take for granted the simple things. It shows how we follow our lives step by step when you don’t have to. I really like how Luci Tapahonso used dialogue to tell me what the old lady said then explaing it. If she had said, “the old lady says she dosnt use measureing cups” it would not turn out as well. Although the old lady is not of huge importance to the poem, her way of doing things has changed the way I think about the way we live. I belive Poets use charictors in their poetry to get theyre point across. Much of poetry is from the Poet to you, but in Martin Esoada and Luci Tapahonso’s poetry, they get their points across threw the charictors in their poems. For instance, in “ Offerings to an Ulcerated God” Martin Espada is trying to show how the U.S. court system can sometimes discriminate against Imagrants. Instead of him just saying in his poetry that the court system is courupt, he tells you threw the charictors.