Beyond Worlds Introduction - Essay Example

18 April The Works of Jack Agueros In 1934, Jack Agueros was born in New York in East Harlem. He began his written works as a community activist with numerous pieces about issues encompassing the issue of immigration. Serving as the Director of Museo del Barrio for eight years, he has written screenplays for both television and stage and also has written numerous poems. Many of his works deal with obstacles and challenges that Puerto Ricans may go through while living in America. He has written books of poems including Correspondence Between Stonehaulers in 1991, Sonnets from the Puerto Rican in 1996 and Lord, Is This a Psalm? in 2002. He has also translated books and poems as well as having written other story collections.

Agueros has been the recipient of many awards for his writing including the most recent Asan World Prize for Poetry (Poets.org). Though Agueros was an American, his parents had migrated from Puerto Rico. His father, who had worked as a police officer in Puerto Rico, came to New York in 1920, only to be able to work in factories and restaurants. Eleven years later, Agueros’ mother came to be a seamstress in the garment district. As immigrants living in a poor part of New York, his family received an early form of what is now welfare.

As a graduate of high school in 1953, Agueros spent four years in the Air Force. It was after his discharge that he received a Bachelor of Arts from Brooklyn College in English in 1964 where he won the first of many literary awards in playwriting and poetry. He went on to obtain a Master of Arts in Urban Studies in 1970 from Occidental College (Espada). In “Sonnet Substantially Like the Words of F Rodriguez One Position Ahead of Me on the Unemployment Line,” Agueros writes a poem about business.

In this poem, there are several uses of symbolism, using music and yo-yos to talk about business and how the average person can be taken advantage of in it. He appears to evoke his own frustrations about how it is difficult to ever be heard by corporations and to get jobs (Agueros, 2003). In “Halfway to Dick and Jane: A Puerto Rican Pilgrimage,” Agueros discusses the triumphs and trials that an immigrant encounters when coming to America. He describes it in such a way that readers can feel that Puerto Ricans may feel as though they have lost a part of who they are when they come to America.

However, in his comparison to storybook characters Dick and Jane, he seems to suggest that even those characters were created in a fictional society and established an identity so migrants too should be optimistic that they will find themselves (Agueros, 1971). In “Psalm for the Damnation of Pig Pino, Oink Ochet Who, Unlike His Victims, Will Neither Die nor Disappear, Because He Was Never Human,” Agueros uses very harsh terminology that makes readers feel like they have been kicked. Pig Pino, Oink Ochet’s body seems representative of a person but yet is someone who was never in human form.

It represents puke, everything putrid and it is a hideous corpse. There are strong and powerful phrases throughout this poem. It can be difficult to decipher what Agueros was meaning in this poem simply because it seemed angry and bitter as well as very dark and full of hate which was very fascinating but almost painful to read (Agueros, 2002).Works CitedAgueros, Jack. “Halfway to Dick and Jane: A Puerto Rican Pilgrimage.” The Immigrant Experience: The Anguish of Becoming American. New York: New Dial, 1971. 85. Print.

Agueros, Jack. “Sonnet Substantially Like the Words of F Rodriguez One Position Ahead of Me on the Unemployment Line.” PoemHunter.com. 20 Jan. 2003. Web. 18 April 2014. .Agueros, Jack. “Psalm for the Damnation of Pig Pino, Oink Ochet Who, Unlike His Victims, Will Neither Die nor Disappear, Because He Was Never Human.” Lord, Is This a Psalm? Hanging Loose Press, 2002. 25. Print. Espada, Martin . “Jack Agueros.” martinespada.net. N.p., 2014. Web. 18 Apr. 2014. .“Jack Agueros.” Poets.org From the Academy of American Poets.

Academy of American Poets, n.d. Web. 18 April 2014. .