Dizzy In Your Eyes: Poems About Love

BOOK REVIEW: Dizzy In Your Eyes: Poems About Love

CITATION:

Mora, Pat. Dizzy In Your Eyes: Poems About Love. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2010. 

ISBN: 9780375843754

SUMMARY:

Pat Mora shares this collection of poems about love, seen through the eyes of teenagers. These poems, written in various forms, including love for family, a boyfriend or girlfriend, an animal, music, and other things. These poems show various feelings and the inner thoughts associated with love.

CRITICAL ANALYSIS:

In Dizzy in Your Eyes: Poems About Love, award-winning poet and author Pat Mora presents 50 poems that tell little stories about love and the gamut of that experience through the eyes of teenagers. In her letter to the reader, she explains that the intensity of love in the teen years can cause someone to feel “dizzy in their eyes.” The poems, written for ages 12 and up, show many aspects of different kinds of love, with some being silly, others serious, and others sad. Mora introduces the reader to many kinds of poems (clerihew, haiku, free verse, pantoum, anaphora, etc) and gives a simple definition of each different kind of poem on the adjacent page of where that poem appears. The format of the book is easy to read, with each poem starting on the right-hand side of the page and typically lasting one to two pages. While there are no illustrations, there are simple grey graphics to set off the words of the poems. These symbols and dots seem to skip on the pages as they are turned quickly by the reader. Each poem, while short, gives the reader a thought about experiencing love or witnessing love by a teenager. The tone of the poems varies widely, from one speaking of loss of a friend, while others are about jitters from seeing a pretty girl, being rejected by a friend for the prom, having a broken home, and even going to see a parent in prison.

Language plays a large role in Dizzy in Your Eyes: Poems About Love. In the poem Mirrors, Mora speaks of a grandmother who tells her granddaughter she’s beautiful, and translates it into Spanish for the reader. Sadly, the girl cannot see her beauty because she says she doesn’t have a face that the boys like, like her sister. The poem Spanish directly addresses a struggle for Hispanic American students in today’s schools. The character in this poem doesn’t want to go to school because she did not know how to speak English. “I hid so deep inside, I’d lose myself for days, forget the sound of my own voice.” The use of English and Spanish can be seen in Conversation, where the dialog between someone who speaks English and Spanish attempts to communicate and one encourages the other to teach him her language. Mora’s poem Ode to Teachers is fully translated afterwards in Spanish.

There are some cultural markers in this book that point directly to Hispanic American culture. Mariachi Fantasy, talks about the anticipation of flirting with a shy girl. The names in some of the poems, such as Papi, Mami, point to the Hispanic American culture. There are many poems that talk about the love of older generations, those love stories of grandparents and parents, which is a focus of the culture. There is also many mentions of grandmothers, grandfathers, aunts and uncles.

This is a refreshingly simple book of poems that invites contemplation and reflection about love, and the many emotions that surround it. It is a quick read, and explains many different types of poems.  The strengths of the book are that it is very relatable, insightful, and flows quickly. If I had to list a weakness, it would only be that Mora’s beautiful poetry leaves the reader wanting to read more.  

REVIEWS AND AWARDS:

Kirkus Review:

“A lovely collection of poems about the uncertainties of teenage love in all its greatness and through all its varied forms of expression. Mora explores the first love between a girl and a boy, the filial love between a daughter and her father, the fraternal love between sisters, the love of family, friends and teachers, picturing each variation as a strong force that strikes, blesses, empowers and beautifies the lives of the ones touched by its light. The poet’s voice is multifaceted: tender, humorous and joyful but also profound, as when she immerses her readers in the solitude and sadness of a day of school in an unknown country, with an unknown language (Spanish is the love-object here). The author employs an extraordinary diversity of poetic forms, from blank verse to a tanka, a cinquain to an anaphora, a haiku to a triolet and more, short notations adding a learning component for budding poets. The poems are complemented by abstract designs, the circles, rectangles and other geometric shapes repeating pleasingly. A must read for lovestruck teens, whether they’re poets or not.”

Children’s Literature:

“In the introductory material readers learn that most of the poems started out as free verse in which Mora addresses various forms of love—filial, boyfriends, pets and just those warm fuzzy feeling caused by caring for someone or something. Mora decided to take some of her poems and put them into forms some of which like tercet, tanka, letter, pantoum, sestina and villanelle are not all that familiar while sonnet, cinquian, haiku, dialogue and list are much more familiar formats. The effect is to create a varied collection held together by the subject of love. Some poems will bring back memories of first love, friendships that lasted through school but were shattered when it came time for the prom. Perhaps that one held a special significance because it stayed with me-the boy whose company you have enjoyed for years asks someone else to the prom, (your heart almost stops.) There are wonderful poems celebrating an older couple's long life together, family outings and the unfailing love of parents and unquestioning love of a pet for its owner or vice versa. One of the poetic forms used to great effect is the tercet (Revenge X3) where a young man slips the same note to three girls, but finally gets his comeuppance. Yet another wonderful poem, Sisters, extols all the positive aspects of sisterhood. A nice item to be shared with ones own sisters. Teachers should be able to make effective use of this collection and students are bound to find several poems that will resonate.”

CONNECTIONS:

Dizzy In Your Eyes: Poems About Love really teaches students about poetry with a subject that is of interest to teenagers, love. A natural extension to this book would be to have students create their own poetry about love. From silly to serious, using a format introduced in the book, each student could open their minds and create one original poem about love.