REVIEWS

small press
April 1 1997 Vol. 29 No. 4

by Clifton Snider

Wrestling with the Angel. By Armando P. Ibáñez 1997; Pa; Pluma Productions, 1977 Carmen Avenue. Los Angeles, CA 90068. $11.95.

From the earliest times poets have been spiritual messengers, a role too often reelected by modern poets. Armando Ibáñez does not neglect this role. A Dominican priest, his poetry, as Miguel Lopez writes in an introductory note, "'is a good example of a new movement in poetry, in Chicano poetry, that tends to the spiritual," as opposed to the "more political and more social" characteristic of earlier Chicano poetry. Reflecting the reality of current Chicano practice. Ibáñez writes in what he calls "Tex-Mex or Spanglish." Despite a limited knowledge of Spanish, I was at first annoyed by this practice, even though most of the work is in English. However, all the Spanish is translated in parentheses (and two poems written entirely in Spanish are translated fully immediately after the Spanish versions), so that I soon accepted the device.

Taking its title from Jacob's struggle with the angel, Wrestling with the Angel is beautifully produced, with a full color reproduction of an angel by Fra Angelico Giovanni (1387-1455) and other black and white reproductions at the beginning of each appropriately titled section: "The Search," "The First Encounter," "The Struggle - Life, Death," and "The Blessing."
I like the fact that Ibáñez honors the role of the feminine in creation ("Ruah") and that his sympathies extend to a gang-raped woman and a person suffering from AIDS. The poet's central occupation, though, is the search for God. In wars that echo Rumi and the Song of Solomon, he uses the imagery of love to portray this search:

I ate your words,
Slices of your breath. In my dreams of you,
Ilaughed,
I sang,
I fell in love with you.

("Waiting")

Modern poetry could use more of this kind of effort

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