Caminar
Written in free verse, I thought this would be a quick read but the subject matter was nothing to read quickly. Carlos lives in the village of Chopan with his mother and other villagers. Set in the Guatemalan Civil War, Carlos talks his life after the soldiers come and disrupt his quiet life. They come and live a few days, playing with the boys and setting up camps being on with the villagers. There is talk about the Communists, demanding names and promising enough quetzales that tempt the villagers but no one speaks. Days later a body hangs from a tree, their first victim that shakes the people up and makes the soldiers laugh. As the soldiers leave, “some people worried, didn’t want them to go, felt unsafe. Some people sighed, didn’t want them to stay, felt unsafe.” Not long after that, the rebels came, they were a gentle bunch at first. Carlos is in the jungle when gunfire pierces his ears, climbing a tree he hears screaming and crying. He hopes his mother follows the messages she has instilled in Carlos, “to head to the mountains in times of trouble.” Carlos wants to know what happened to his village but he knows he must listen to the advice of his mother and head up the mountain. The poems carry you on, some full of energy and strength while others have an easy tranquil flow to them. Carlos makes quite a transformation and the story is war.
I liked the energy and the flow to the different poems. Some of them, I felt the urgency and the charge in the matter and with others there was this composed calm state that Carlos was in and I felt myself actually take a breath and relaxing. When he learns about Chopan, that was powerful stuff. The way it was written, I just sat there and read it again, and stared at the words. It was final. A great book to put this part of history into the hands of young people.
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