Speaking at a Time / Hablando a la Vez

English and Spanish Poetry
by Amelia Díaz Ettinger
Showcasing writers from the Pacific Northwest, Redbat Books is proud to launch its new book series with Speaking at a Time, 
Amelia Díaz Ettinger’s debut book of English and Spanish poetry.
Published by: Redbat Books, La Grande, OR
ISBN-13: 978-0989592437
Publication date: August 1, 2015
Cover design: Kristin Summers
Trade Paper
6" x 9"
96 pages
$15.00

Praise for Speaking at a Time

“Amelia Díaz Ettinger’s book of poems, Speaking at a Time, is a gathering of poems about her father, her daughter, the town of Caguas, and the race track, among other things. These recollections pulse with energy, and they echo the poetry of Lorca and Neruda. This is a strong, first book.”
—PETER SEARS, Oregon Poet Laureate
“In Speaking At A Time, Amelia Díaz Ettinger first celebrates growing up in 1960s Puerto Rico. She names what she loves–the island’s tropical riches, the lives of those who loved her, the daily facts of working people. In forthright bi-lingual vernacular, the poems catalog her urban childhood and adolescence in Caguas—a physician’s daughter thriving in a multi-cultural milieu. Evenings, she listened to her father and uncles reciting Hispanic poetry. On television, she heard Pales Matos and Nicolas Guillen. At school she learned to write her own poems. When she immigrated to the United States in 1974, and began her quest for an education, love, career, marriage, family, everything changed. In the 1990s, while raising her children far from any community of Puerto Rican writers or poets such as those Nuyoricans who publish their experiences in the United States, she realized that her immigrant quest had created great cultural and linguistic distance between herself and her children. So, the later poems develop conflicts between immigration and integration, between Anglo and Hispanic cultures, between alienation and community. To resolve those conflicts, the poet synthesizes cultures and languages, best symbolized by the book’s bi-lingual presentation, while she continues to document and question what it means to be a Puerto Rican exile in Oregon. This is strong and honest work—filled with love and grief and eloquence. With these solo pages, she joins her distant contemporaries—Victor Hernandez Cruz, Judith Ortiz Cofer, Tato Laviera.”
—GEORGE VENN, Eastern Oregon University, General Editor, Oregon Literature Series

Excerpt from Speaking at a Time

Remembering the Turabo

Looking through hot and dilapidated
classroom windows
decorated with the dewlap
of lizards
hoping to escape
on the white and blue streamers
of my Schwinn Tiger
to a world of imaginary waters
my river
the manly and ugly Turabo.
Half dead in thin mud
with thickets of tangled plants
that whispered tantalizing obscenities
to me, an eloping Catholic
in uniform, mentally undressing myself
for his element.
With timid tits I probed his breath--
my buttocks warming to his embrace.
Satiated in his water
mentally swimming
with phantomless fish of long ago.
The Turabo had testicles of catfish
caressing with kisses of gray and black tadpoles.
His green-brown arms
floating me away
free
from rulers, teachers, friends.
That river loved me
devoured me
and with slippery pebbles tickled
the soles of my bare feet
free in mind
from perennial Buster Browns.
Then, as all secret lovers do,
deposited me
soiled with algae
back to books, lectures, uniform
virginal.
Recordando el Turabo

Mirando através de calientes y ruinosas
ventanas del aula
decoradas con la papada
de lagartos
con la esperanza de escapar
en las serpentinas blancas y azules
de mi Schwinn Tiger
a un mundo de aguas imaginarias
mi río
el varonil y deslucido Turabo.
Medio muerto en fango demacrado
con matorrales de plantas enredadas
que susurraba obscenidades tentadoras
para mí, una católica prófuga
en uniforme, mentalmente desnudándome
a su elemento.
Con tetillas tímidas probé su aliento--
mis nalgas calentándose a su abrazo.
Saciada en su agua
nadando mentalmente
con peces espectros de antaño.
El Turabo tenía testículos de bagre
y acariciaba con besos grises y negros de renacuajos.
Sus brazos verde-marrón
me flotaba
libre
de reglas, maestros, amigos.
Ese río me amaba
me devoraba
con piedritas resbaladizas me cosquilleaba
las plantas de mis pies descalzos
libre en mente
de perennes Buster Browns.
Entonces, como todos los amantes secretos
me depositaba
manchada con algas
de regreso a libros, lecciones, uniforme
virginal.