Talk:Nemir Matos-Cintrón

Article needs revisions
This Wikipedia article does not follow conventional article standards of neutrality and collective authorship. I volunteer to edit it so that it is appropriate. Please do not delete.Lawrlafo (talk) 19:01, 27 May 2009 (UTC)

Eliminated name of Wikipedia contributor in order for article to comply with neutrality
At the request of author, I have eliminated the name of the person who contributed the article (or to whom it was attributed), Article Author: Dr. Luz‐María Umpierre Independent Scholar, Poet and Human Rights so that the article meets collective authorship criteria.Lawrlafo (talk) 19:11, 27 May 2009 (UTC)

Unnecessary Bibliographic References
I have eliminated this reference:

Bloom, Harold. The Anxiety of Influence. A Theory of Poetry, London, Oxford, New York: Oxford University Press, 1973.

Umpierre-Herrera, Luz Maria, Nuevas aproximaciones críticas a la literatura puertorriqueña contemporánea, Rio Piedras, Editorial Cultural, 1983, pp.115-127.Lawrlafo (talk) 19:18, 27 May 2009 (UTC)

Eliminated Original Unpublished Research
I have eliminated the following passages which are unpublished original research by Luz María Umpierre:

However, to fall prey into that highly used and charged classification ignores aspects of this collection that are notable for the innovations they assert. One poem, entitled “Revisiting Cuban poet Nicolás Guillén’s poem: “Todo Mezclado,” takes off mostly from Guillén’s “Son 16” in its poetical response. Guillén’s generates in his poem not only a racial and ethnic identity for Caribbean people and, specifically, Cubans, but also intergenerational aspects as seen in the verses: “Estamos juntos desde muy lejos, jóvenes, viejos, negros y blancos, todo mezclado;”

Guillén’s intent is to obliterate differences and to create an Island identity as a “mixture” of every aspect that race, ethnicity, religiosity and even age has had as separate and to create the new cultural entity of “Todo mezclado.” To this new entity an addition is made in terms of the balance of power between master and slave. In Guillén’s poem it is difficult to recognize the master from the servant in traditional political terms since, as Guillén asserts: “uno mandando y otro mandado, todo mezclado;”

Matos Cintrón poem “Revisiting…” takes off from the same subject of mixture of races and ethnicities as exemplified in Guillén’s “Son 16.” However, the locus of attention of the poetical voice in Matos’ poem is the body of a woman from the West Indies whom the poetic voice describes as having: “Indian smells of cinnamon and curry.” The speaker feels the same: “Sounds of Yoruba drums” that resonated in Guillén’s poem but now coming from “my temples.” In my estimation, the reference is tree‐fold. While still following the Afro‐Caribbean theme of the drums in Guillén, Matos adds the meanings also of “temples” of worship. These temples were also in Guillén’s mélange of cultures, when his poetic voice spoke of the mixture of Christian and pagan beliefs as part of the “Todo mezclado” culture of the Caribbean. However, in Matos’s poem the beloved is seen as an offering to the poetic voice in the erotic encounter in a new kind of temple. Later, in the surprise ending, the reader will realize where this ritual takes place, in a location not conceived by Guillén’s composition. The third meaning of the “temples” takes the reader to the physiological level of the actual “temples” of the head as blood rushes from the excitement from the love‐making ritual. This last aspect supposes a “swerve” (Bloom’s terminology) or turn from the original. Aspects of culture are now interwoven with the love‐making theme. The poem continues both helping itself and breaking from Guillén’s poem. On the other hand, the theme of master/servant from “Son 16” continues also in Matos’s piece as the speaker describes herself as a “conquistador reaching your shore” while the beloved has “Fierce Carib armies” in her hands. However, another swerve occurs when the speaker, regardless of the dominant/domineered theme established, describes the sexual interaction as “You and I, both “esclavo”and the “señor.” The speaker has made a leap to re‐introduce the subject of master/servant from the original parent poem, but here as emanating from the “journey of sweat,/ sweet and sour chutney, pasta de guayaba/English breakfast tea, café con leche,/ horseradish and ground garlic” adding a new meaning to Guillén’s idea of “Todo mezclado.” In the original parent poem, the mixture included aspects of race, ethnicity and religiosity. Here Matos’ introduces into the equation the subject of food as a “mixture, a mélange of smell, sweat and sap from our bodies.” Although still following a subject of culture that resonates or emanates from the parent poem, the idea of two female bodies as food is a departure and total turn away from Guillén’s poem. The subject of women and food, or women as food is one that puts the text in a re‐visionist light to this reader since it is a subject matter that repeats itself in the literature of women in/from the Caribbean. This particular subject is totally separated from Guillén’s parent poem and sets the stage for the dénouement.

The surprise ending of Matos’ poem takes an absolute turn from Guillén’s and establishes now a dominant new “Other” entity into his “Todo mezclado.” The mezcla in “Revisiting…” has occurred not under Guillén’s tropical island paradise of Cuba or the Caribbean, but: “molten under a fake tropical sun/painted on a wall/ behind my bed in New York City.” The locus of the original poem has changed to introduce a brand new element with which Matos’ poem breaks totally from the original. The breakage does not only occur by bringing up the idea of love making between women, as some critics would like to reduce the poem to, but to a broader level of Island and environment that can be reconstructed even in the vacuum or in the bed of an apartment in Manhattan—an island within an island. Thus, this is a poem of exile not because the poem takes two women as the “subjects” but that it brings us to the theme of a broader exile: the exile of the soul, of the mind and of bodies trying to re‐configure themselves as sustenance away from known realities of the past in the Caribbean; a total rupture from the parent poem. Let us not forget that Matos’ poem is called “Revisiting...” and visitors often leave behind ample traces of change on the visited. Lawrlafo (talk) 03:56, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

Please Consider Removing Tags
I have added references to this article, added links to Wikipedia articles, eliminated original research, and reorganized and rewritten substantive parts of the article. Please consider removing tags.Lawrlafo (talk) 03:59, 4 June 2009 (UTC)
 * I went ahead and removed the wikify = May 2009, cleanup = May 2009, and BLPunsourced = May 2009 tags. Lawrlafo (talk) 15:47, 7 June 2009 (UTC)

New Edits
I am editing the article in accordance to request by Nemir Matos-Cintrón (subject of article), who contacted me and requested several changes.--Lawrlafo (talk) 16:07, 14 April 2012 (UTC)