Events and Reviews

Posted September 5, 2022

Human Cicada

By Carlos Cumpián

Prickly Pear Publishing & Nopalli Press, 2021

112 Pages

ISBN-13: 978-1889568102

Review by Yolanda Nieves

Carlos Cumpián’s much anticipated book of poetry, Human Cicada, is his fifth collection of poems—a breadbasket of delicious truth-telling iced with magical reality. The words come together in a kaleidoscope of memories, ancestral voices, and reflections that read like testimonios—first person accounts of historical events through first-person perspectives. The poems, a highway connecting a life of experiences in the inner-city with images excavated from hallow memories forged in the American west and in American south, Cumpián’s poetry allows us to cross bridges that deepen our understanding of the everyday events that flutter by while we forget to notice. The poems also act as arrows that point to the Brown and Black bodies who metaphorically live under the bridges of our cold-steeled society—those who scavenge for food, sage broken bodies, and can’t remember their personal links to geographic spaces. Like the cicada sound, created by the insects’ tymbals that drum against its body, this book of poetry trembles with the loud music of life’s troubles and uncelebrated triumphs. The words show us how we can live many lives at the same time and not lose the essence of who we are. The poems, as a collection, toll a bell—una campana of counter narratives urging us to remember to honor the voices of our ancestors and take note of narratives that have been largely ignored by mainstream publishers.

Human Cicada kicks back at the “one-voice” and “one-tongue” monotone so often prominent in traditional poetry collections. Unapologetically, Cumpián shares his poems in English, Spanish, Spanglish, Nahuatl, and Lakota. The intersection of languages creates a constellation of movement to the poems that give the reader a glimpse to a deep historical essence that has been largely ignored in mainstream literature. In that way, Cumpián guides our consciousness to remember people whom we are taught to forget. In “It is dream” Cumpián writes:

We emerge from the dark charcoal blanket of night,

our ancestors foraged for more than food,

they generated the genius seed of all Toltecs.

It is too big for hooks, spears, arrows, or nets.

There are poems like “Beauty and the Blade” and “Daughters” where Cumpián reflects on the day-to-day events that color the lives of women so often deemed invisible. Other poems examine our humanity with a clear justified voice of social criticism that relate the spiritual and tangible complications of being Mexicano, Latino/a, indigenous, and multilingual all at the same time.

As our lives continue to be imbued with unreliable information from media sources, and with no one stepping up with a clear plan on how to uplift our humanity toward one another, we must rely on our writers and poets, like Cumpián, whose powerful poetry blossoms from strong roots and declares how the embodiment of human goodness remains in the hands of everyday people. The poems will make you want to shapeshift into a poet. In the poem “Yo Homie, Mexica Tiacauh!” Cumpián’s words resonate as a call to action to speak truth to power:

Don’t be afraid to say it! We affirm that it’s our turn

To go forward, advancing as you help others.

Let’s not be reduced to fragment phrases,

Leaving but a few palabras to heat our chocolate

And our chili, mi estimado amigo con su cara

De nopalito, let me ask you,

Tehuatzin ti Mexikatl? /Are you Mexican, valiant one?

Finally, the valiant collection of memories set to poetry in Human Cicada, acts as a guidebook on how to (re)-view the world, both past and present. A portal that so rarely opens for readers of poetry, Cumpián’s writing is an example of what happens when poets listen to ancestral voices that whisper in their ears. It is like the sunrise that sheds light on a cloudy horizon; voices that have been ignored are lifted to the sky as the written word. Gladly, our poet accepted the call to listen and write Human Cicada. And like the sweaty garment worker embraced by her lover at the end of the day, or the parents who sign in relief with the quiet of children sleeping, we can welcome the Human Cicadas’ song into the canon of fine poetry.

=== ABOUT THE REVIEWER: Dr. Yolanda Nieves, a lifelong Humboldt Park ( Chicago) resident, is an Associate Professor of English at Wright College in Chicago. A multi-genre writer, her research and creative work centers marginalized voices.