Power: Poetry by Martin Espada

“Power changes everything.” Says Libba Bray in her book, “The Sweet Far Thing.”  Martin Espada’s poems agree. In Espada’s works, “New Bathroom Policy at English High School,”  “Revolutionary Spanish Lesson,” and “Two Mexicanos Lynched in Santa Cruz California May 3, 1877,” power is a recurring theme. To the subjects of the poems, it is their security, their identity and their morality. As this theme threads though all of the poems, Espada is trying to communicate the effects of power on humans, their relationships with each other, and even with death.

Martin Espada speaks of power and authority in his poem, “New Bathroom Policy at English High School.” The poem first speaks of a group of boys talking openly in Spanish in their school bathroom while, unbeknownst to them, their principal sit in a toilet stall. Just Espada specifying the man’s rank over the students, making who has the authority clear, establishes a power dynamic. When the principal hears his name, he doesn’t understand the context of it, but it vexes him, as Espada says, “it constipates him.” The reason the principal feels so antagonized by this is that the boys have taken away his power over them. “The only word he recognizes/is his own name,” and therefore he has lost the power to understand what they are saying or what they think of him. He is afraid of this and the loss of power makes it so he feels repressed and insecure in his own authority. To “relax” he must regain his control and power by flexing the muscles of his authority, deciding to “ban Spanish/in the bathrooms.” Only now can he relax. Authority is a necessity in this poem.

            Power features heavily again in Martin Espada’s, “Revolutionary Spanish Lesson.” The poem describes the subject’s reaction to when someone mispronounces his name. He wants to “comb his beard to a point,” and “push his beret at an angle.” In other words look like the Spanish revolutionary icon from Cuba, Che Guevara. He wants to hijack a busload of Midwestern republican tourist and force them to chant in Spanish. Although some may see this as a gross overreaction, it is a power trip.  When people mispronounce your name, especially one evocative of your heritage and culture (as I believe the subject’s is because of the title of the poem, “Revolutionary Spanish Lesson.”) it is taking away the power you have over your identity and the power your culture holds. The subject in this poem wants to re-establish the authority he has over who he is and the power his culture holds in the world by forcing those stereotyped as most ignorant (Midwestern republicans) to acknowledge his culture and identity. He takes away their power.

            “Two Mexicanos Lynched in Santa Cruz California May 3, 1877” describes exactly what it is titled- a terrible slaughter set back when such atrocities were common. When even jail held no power over the self proclaimed vigilantes- a group of citizens who take the law into their own hands. In the 1800s, still a time of brutal racism, vigilantes had the ultimate power, as Espada shows. Each stanza starts with “more than,” leading the reader to understand that “more than” all of the horrible details of the deaths of the Mexicanos, was what happens in the last stanza (the only one that does not begin with “more than.”). The last stanza describes how what “remain”s are the murderers, who crowd “into the photograph” they have taken to commemorate the event. The vigilantes have clearly held the power throughout the poem, but now they take away even the power that death has. They refuse to acknowledge the atrocity by taking the photograph, making the deaths secondary to the camaraderie. Power is solely theirs in Martin Espada’s poem.

            Throughout Espada’s “New Bathroom Policy at English High School,”  “Revolutionary Spanish Lesson,” and “Two Mexicanos Lynched in Santa Cruz California May 3, 1877,” power is the necessity of life and all are susceptible to its lures. Through powerful verse, Espada shows us how most people crave power and go to ends such as killing to have it. But why do humans desire to feel powerful? To control? Maybe it is because we are afraid of what happens if do not have the power, if other people make decisions for us. This is probably why there are dictators or gangs, people like the principal at “New English High School,” willing to do whatever it takes to have power in their hands.