The Great Wave by Ron Slate

deals with a sense of "newness/7 echoing thenotion of this thirdbook in the series. He writes: "This is the new novel. / This is the new unprocessed & overwrought. /This is the new ugly; / This is the new empty." "New empty," however, these poems are not. The series as a whole has been attended towith commitment and a great sense of professionalism. What is now avail able is a fabulous trilogy of New Zealand's performance poets over the ages brought not only to the readers' eyes but also to their ears. Emma Dazvson Keele University Levi Romero. A Poetry of Remem brance: New and Rejected Works. Albuquerque. University of New Mexico Press. 2008. 159 pages. $21.95. isbn 978-0-8263-4509-7 Levi Romero's A Poetry ofRemem brance is amust read forall aspiring poets who have struggled with the craftofpoetry, and inparticularwith finding their own voice. Although Romero's verse is constructively sound and each line meticulously arranged, his words contribute to a greater meaning, a simple manifesto with a profound message: "the last thing in poetry is the poem." Thus forgood reason he wraps his poetry around the theme of remembrance and what he calls "an honoring of land and people." As a storyteller,Romero feels compelled to remember people and places that may not always seem poetic: junked cars stranded in arroyos, lifeless village plazas once the hub of social gatherings, aban doned community molinos (mills) replaced by satellite dishes, a dying mother in a hospice, viejitos (elders) nostalgic for old ways, lowriders without lowered rides, and others down, but not out. Romero remem bers them all, and indoing so, hon ors them; he writes, "How come nothing in thegreat american poetry anthology / reads like theamerica I know?" Perhaps this is so because northern New Mexico culture has been impenetrable by outsiders who did not speak the language?not Spanish, but the language of inti macy that only those in the know understand. Romero's fine poetic sensibilities thus are his invitation to this America, a bilingual, mul ticultural world where lowered Fleetlines cruisewell below the sug gested speed, the rosariois recitedon the radio, and La Llorona is kin to every lost soul. However, remembering is not always a positive experience. After all, Romero does not declare it a poetry ofnostalgia; there isno going back. As Romero himself notes, New Mexico's cultural landscape under went more dramatic change within the last thirty years than in theprevi ous four hundred. Of these changes, perhaps the most palpable is the M^waB^gaajM^^^r * ** '^s^ decay of community identity and E erosion of reverence for hard work E and sacrifice. The former is particuE larlyevident when Romero weaves E in thewords of others creating a E communal voice of remembrance, E which the following dicho (saying) E exemplifies perfectly: "Hoy en dia E la plebe no quiere cuidar borregas. E Quieren nom?s la lana" (Nowadays E people don't want to tend sheep, E they just want the wool/money). E This sentiment isechoed throughout E the text,reminding us thatself-pres- E ervation and cultural maintenance E come at a cost: "todos quieren la E gloria pero nadien quiere la cruz" E (Everybody wants the glory but E nobody wants the cross). In theend, E Levi Romero's message is to keep E thepoetic traditionof remembering E alive. For as his mother taughthim, E he has surely passed on the lesson, E "\acuerdate, mi'jito! / remember!" E Spencer R. Herrera E New Mexico StateUniversity E Ron Slate. The Great Wave. Boston. E Houghton MifflinHarcourt. 2009. 96 1 pages. $23. isbn978-0-547-23274-4 1 It's been five years since Ron Slate E entered the poetry scene with his E first collection, the 2004 Bakeless E Poetry Prize-winning The Incentive E of the Maggot, which was laternomi- E nated for the National Book Crit- E ics Circle Award and the Lenore E Marshall Prize. As befitting a poet E who had spent decades as a com- E munications executive, the book E was celebrated for, among other E things, existing at the crossroads E where the personal meets and relin- E quishes itshold

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