During these trying days of social distancing, self-isolating and quarantines, days rife with fear and anxiety, my colleagues and I thought you might like some company. So each day we will be introducing you to poets we have met over the years. The only contagion they will expose you to is a measure of joy, reflection and meditation brought on by “the best words in the best order.”
Enjoy.
— Bill Moyers
In 1995, as part of the “Language of Life” poetry series, Bill Moyers interviewed Caribbean poet Victor Hernandez Cruz. In this clip, he reads his poem, “The Problems with Hurricanes” and talks about his writing.
“I write about myself as a Caribbean man, a man within a larger tapestry, and I try to see the connections between everything,” he tells Bill. “Between myself and history, myself a racially mixed person, and all these things that make me up. I explore them in my poetry.”
The Problems with Hurricanes
A campesino looked at the air
And told me:
With hurricanes it’s not the wind
or the noise or the water.
I’ll tell you he said:
it’s the mangoes, avocados
Green plantains and bananas
flying into town like projectiles.
How would your family
feel if they had to tell
The generations that you
got killed by a flying
Banana.
Death by drowning has honor
If the wind picked you up
and slammed you
Against a mountain boulder
This would not carry shame
But
to suffer a mango smashing
Your skull
or a plantain hitting your
Temple at 70 miles per hour
is the ultimate disgrace.
The campesino takes off his hat—
As a sign of respect
toward the fury of the wind
And says:
Don’t worry about the noise
Don’t worry about the water
Don’t worry about the wind—
If you are going out
beware of mangoes
And all such beautiful
sweet things.
Victor Hernandez Cruz was born in Aguas Buenas, Puerto Rico. He moved to New York City with his family when he was five years old, but he didn’t start learning English until two years later when his family bought a television set. He started writing poetry early and at 17 self-published his first book, Papo Got His Gun! And Other Poems, on a mimeograph machine. Since then, more than a dozen collections of his poems among them Snaps (1969); By Lingual Wholes (1982); Red Beans (1991); Rhythm, Content, and Flavor: New and Selected Poems (1989); and The Mountain in the Sea (2006) — have been published by traditional publishing houses. He is a member of the Nuyorican movement of writers.
Cruz was one of the founders of the Before Columbus Foundation, a nonprofit organization that promotes the recognition of multicultural writers. He has received fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts. (Bio courtesy of Poetry Foundation. Read more of his poems.)
See all poets in the A Poet a Day Collection.
