A friend's gift book, discovered through hearing an interview on NPR, introduced me to Martin Espada, whose collection, The Trouble Ball, won the 2012 Milt Kessler Award and a 2012 International Latino Book Award. Treat yourself to something nice. It is a holiday month and you deserve it regardless.
Blasphemy
for Sam Hamill
Let the blasphemy be spoken: poetry can save us,
not the way a fisherman pulls the drowning swimmer
into his boat, nor the way Jesus, between screams,
promised life everlasting to the thief crucified beside him
on the hill, but salvation nevertheless.
Somewhere a convict sobs into a book of poems
from the prison library, and I know why
his hands are careful not to break the brittle pages.
Martin Espada
