What's in a Name?

Everything. Each of us, it seems to me, lives inside a name, resonates to the sound of this name spoken by others.

Consider a short poem by Demetria Martínez:

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Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when published  So Much Depends    On an accent mark  Our name was Martín  Until great-grandpa Trinidad  Changed it to Martínez  So that no one  Would call us Martin  I may be the only cousin left  Who strikes the i with a lightning bolt  I stand in that light  And am seen.      Poetry in Dangerous Times    Casa Urraca Press 2025

I hear the echo of William Carlos Williams in this poem’s title—and the implication that much can depend on something ordinarily seen as insignificant. Here it’s an acute accent on the letter i—a crucial stroke. In five lines, Martínez demonstrates what ignoring this accent mark can do, how pronouncing Martín without the accented i changes it to another name entirely—featureless, stripped of identity.

I am reminded of how Anglos, this writer included, mangled Spanish names when I was growing up in South Texas. Our school had students named Villareal. I cringe, remembering we called them Veer-ee-AHL, all the music flattened. In Texas history, we anglicized the Battle of San Jacinto, changing hah-SEEN-toh to juh-SIN-tuh.

“So Much Depends” arrives at a remove of three generations from the great-grandfather who added a syllable and kept the accented í. Succeeding generations, immersed in American English, might have dropped the accent mark. But not Demetria Martínez. “I may be the only cousin left,” she says, “Who strikes the i with a lightning bolt.” Perfect!—this visual image of the accented letter in Martínez, surprising the poet—surprising us—with the energy that transforms both name and poet in the act of a simple strike.

The surprise is complete as we follow Demetria Martínez into a landscape illuminated by the lightning strike of an accented í:

Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when published  I stand in that light  And am seen.About the Author

Born and raised in Albuquerque, New Mexico, Demetria Martínez is a writer, a poet, an immigrant rights activist. Aside from Poetry in Dangerous Times, which shares its pages with the writer Susan Sherman, Martínez’s poetry titles include The Devil’s Workshop (2002), Breathing Between the Lines (1997), and Turning (1987). Her novel Mother Tongue (1994), recipient of a Western States Book Award, is based in part on her 1988 indictment on charges of conspiring to smuggle Central American refugees into the United States.

Note

Casa Urraca Press, based in Abiquiu, New Mexico, is publishing books that are worth your attention. Take a look ⇒

Poetry in Dangerous Times is available here ⇒

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