Awards
Mango Juice
Eating mangoeson a stick is laughing as gold juice slides down your chin melting manners, as mangoes slip through your lips sweet but biting is hitting piñatas blindfolded and spinning away from the blues and grays is tossing fragile cascarones on your love's hair, confetti teasing him to remove his shoes his mouth open and laughing as you glide more mango in, cool rich flesh of México music teasing you to strew streamers on trees and cactus teasing the wind to stream through your hair blooming with confetti and butterflies your toes warm in the sand. © 2000 Pat Mora |
My Own True Name Readers of all ages have long admired Pat Mora's extraordinary literary gifts. Her poems and prose works alike, written for both adults and young readers, have received awards and critical acclaim for their grace, luminosity, and craftsmanship. In this anthology, Pat Mora has gathered the best of her poems with young-adult readers in mind, and has added to them several new poems published here for the first time. Using the cactus plant as her guiding metaphor for our existence, she presents more than sixty lyrics grouped variously into "Blooms," "Thorns," and "Roots." Each section opens with a line drawing by artist Anthony Accardo, and the whole is prefaced by a brief introduction, "Dear Fellow Writer," in the poet's uniquely warm and informal voice. Much like a blossoming young man or woman, My Own True Name has been fifteen years in the making. And lovers of poetry will find it - like a lovingly tended garden - an eye-opening and delightful place to enjoy and explore. On November 29, 2012, Pat's poem "Teenagers" from My Own True Name, originally published in Communion, was featured on The Writer's Almanac. Listen here. Using Reader Response Theory with My Own True Name A Note from Pat Highlighted Reviews “Mora...has chosen poems with themes that are accessible to, yet challenging for teens, a few of which appear in both English and Spanish. Occasional footnotes explain historical references or Spanish phrases. The introduction encourages young writers, as do the poems themselves. This anthology speaks to a young adult audience, and it should find many readers.”—School Library Journal “Pat Mora’s new collection of nonrhyming poetry calls on young adults to embrace their identity with passion … Again and again, she compares generations and speaks of differences, of changes. Mora’s goal is to provide confidence for her young readers and to encourage a path of passion and interest without misrepresenting the difficulties they might encounter.”—Austin American Statesman “Mora gives voice to the soul of the American Southwest … This anthology will enhance unit studies in multicultural issues, American diversity, immigration, and the Mexican-American experience. Using the subtly vivid palette of the desert, Mora applies rich brushstrokes to her canvas to create a Mexican-American reality.”—Linworth Publishing, Inc. "This collection does know life, flower, and song. It is a collection for young adults to build upon their own voices, right above Pat Mora's bones."—Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy "In "My Own True Name," Pat Mora investigates the origin of identity through 62 poems, crafted to give the reader a more-than-cursory view of the Mexican-American's status in this country … Mora is careful to illustrate how important language can be. When words are combined with the spirit of the land, the poet reveals the secret of language's power. Because she is a native of the southwestern United States, Mora translates that area into a homeland that rises above borders and nationalities. There is an indomitability accompanying that region, and it gives its people the strength to survive."—"Mi Poema Es Tu Poema: Mora celebrates multiculturalism in multilingual verses," Home News Tribune |
Pat Mora
Writer, Poet, Reader
