Turtle Pictures

by Ray Gonzalez

The rhythm of vision, the rhythm of dream, the rhythm of voices saturating the hot southwestern landscape. These are the rhythms of Ray Gonzalez, the haunting incantations of Turtle Pictures .Gonzalez has forged a new Chicano manifesto, a cultural memoir that traces both his personal journey and the communal journey that Mexican Americans have traveled throughout this century, across this land. He interweaves lyrical poetry, prose poems, short fiction, and nonfiction commentary into a lush cacophony that traces the evolution of today's politically charged Chicano voices from the deafening silence of their ancestors.Adopting the turtle as a metaphor for the Native American origins of border culture, Gonzalez frames this multitextured individual vision until it becomes a universal portrait of American a slow, ancient creature morphing into one of voracious rapidity. In wild and challenging surrealistic images, he hammers out a political statement from language that takes on a special urgency. Walking a fine line between lyricism and polemic, and succeeding where others have stumbled, he calls on Mexican Americans to return to their roots in order to avoid being swept up in American material culture. Turtle Pictures is a complex body of work by a poet totally in tune with the spirit and nuances of language, imbued with a deep sense of craft and literary tradition. It invites readers to revel in its richness and vitality, to be caught up in its chantlike spirit, to luxuriate in its hauntingly beautiful passages. It is a work to devour, to savor, to return to, for it speaks with all the rhythms of the soul.

Genres: Poetry

178 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2000

About the author

The work of award-winning poet and editor Ray Gonzalez is inextricably linked to his Mexican ancestry and his American southwestern upbringing. Born and raised in El Paso, Texas, Gonzalez has employed Chicano imagery in his poetry, oftentimes alluding to America's indigenous past, and particularly to the southwestern desert cultures. Gonzalez has published several collections of his poetry and has served as editor of several anthologies of writings, most of which emphasize the contributions of Chicano authors to the literary scene. These anthologies, including 1998's Touching the Fire: Fifteen Poets of Today's Latino Renaissance, provide a medium for many up-and-coming Latino writers to get their work to the public.

Reviews

[Lorraine · Rating 1 out of 5]

I did not like this book at all. It's full of lines like this one: "it was imagination forested in a cup of onions crying to sing." I found it largely incomprehensible except for some interspersed prose pieces and a section about illegal immigration across the Rio Grande. That section is powerful and affecting (and comprehensible!) and alas only about four pages or so long.

[Superstition Review · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ray Gonzalez’s Turtle Pictures contains poems with very strong messages behind them that will leave the reader surprised by the profound meaning behind every line. There is a common theme of the Latino culture and Gonzalez has an expressive way of addressing the issues that plague the community. One of these issues is the difficulty of trying to be a part of two worlds, a sentiment that is sure to resonate with a lot of readers. Gonzalez writes about these themes from a truthful lense. There is also a beauty to be found in how Gonzalez manages to capture a wide range of emotions in just a few lines.

Review by Dennise Garcia