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Classic and Contemporary Poetry: Explained | |||
The poem opens with a vivid depiction of El Gato's early exposure to violence and hardship, symbolized by the killing of a pig and the harsh streets he navigates. This introduction sets the stage for a life marked by struggle and defiance. El Gato's adolescence is characterized by a deepening involvement in crime and violence, a response to the poverty and desperation that define his existence. The imagery of El Gato dealing drugs and engaging in violent acts is a stark representation of the limited options available to him, and the ways in which societal neglect and systemic failures contribute to cycles of violence and despair. Baca delves into the psychological and emotional toll of El Gato's lifestyle, highlighting the deep-seated pain, anger, and longing for escape that drive his actions. The poem articulates the internal conflict between El Gato's desire for love, stability, and a sense of worth, and the hardened persona he adopts to survive. This duality is explored through the contrasting images of El Gato as a fighter and as a father, a figure of fear and a figure of tenderness, revealing the complex layers of his identity. The narrative arc of El Gato's journey towards redemption begins with the birth of his daughter, a pivotal moment that prompts a reevaluation of his life choices. The depiction of El Gato caring for his infant daughter in the cold living room is a powerful symbol of his yearning for a different life, one marked by love, connection, and a break from the cycle of violence that has defined his existence. This moment of vulnerability and hope marks the beginning of El Gato's transformation. Baca's use of natural imagery, particularly the rain-uncovered pebbles and the stone thrown into the irrigation water, serves as a metaphor for El Gato's potential for change and renewal. The stone's ripples in the water symbolize the impact of individual actions on the broader course of one's life, suggesting that redemption and change are possible, even in the most challenging circumstances. "El Gato" is a testament to the resilience of the human spirit and the capacity for transformation. Baca crafts a narrative that is both a critique of the social and economic forces that conspire to limit the lives of marginalized individuals and a celebration of the potential for redemption and renewal. Through the character of El Gato, Baca invites readers to reflect on the complexities of identity, the consequences of violence, and the enduring possibility of change. The poem is a powerful reminder of the need for empathy, understanding, and support in addressing the root causes of crime and violence, and the potential within every individual for growth and transformation. POEM TEXT: At eight El Gato's uncle lures them with grain in a pail and shoots the brown pig between the eyes, shoos the red-snouted white and black brothers from guzzling blood in the trough. At ten Gato walks chop-block streets with a rooster's tail strut razored for a fight – life a broken fire hydrant flooding streets with blood. In opulent estates, fountains gazelle and bridal-train gardens drain abundantly over spear-tipped walls. Grecian statues offer laureled wisdom to butlered adults with paper-weight hearts, who answer the burning and gunning of America, by building more prisons. Nobody cares what El Gato'll find to eat or where he'll sleep, under street lights throwing dirt clods at hornets' nests, unafraid of being stung, he vows to avenge his poverty, to gash unmercifully with a bicycle chain spineless attorneys taking advantage of his misery, rob a construction executive in a limousine sampling heroin off a hooker's thigh, mug preppy brokers with golden smiles whose gutter glares condemn him, and all the chumps who never cracked a soup-line biscuit or had a court gavel crush their life, should know he plans violent schemes against you, prays saints melt his pain red hot, he'll hammer sharp to take you down to darkness where he lives and impale your heads on La Virgen De Guadelupe's moon sickle. Twelve years old. El Gato is no good, dime bagging Peruvian flakes, inhaling a glue-rag. With all your police and prison sentences, you can't chase El Gato from the street or stop him from selling drugs, because in his square white paper lives God -- El Gato deals God -- who gives reprieve from earthly hell and makes him feel good, gives him hope and self-esteem, and transforms despair to a cocaine-heaven, until he's killed or OD's like other homeboys trashed on a stack of county jail corpses, who understood life was a sewer grate their dignity poured down with discarded litter, where crack creates light when all one has is darkness. Crack is God when hopeless days bury El Gato under rock piles of despair, blocking him from feeling any more, breaking his heart into pieces of NOTHING. El Gato is no good and preaches NOTHING door to door, a strong kid full of NOTHING, from NOTHING does he ask a blessing, to NOTHING does he pray, hopes NOTHING forgive his wrongs and NOTHING helps when he take vengeance on us. Now fourteen, beneath a moon above the sport caster's booth, at the out doors boxing coliseum, after crowds go home and the ring removed, El Gato shadow boxes invisible opponents and raises his hand as champion. He joins homeboys against a rival gang, skips bleachers over hand-rails out of breath, and holds court in the field with bats, pipes, chains, brass knuckles and guns, in a game every kid has to hold a five-ace winning heart, or die with a poker player's bluffing hand – death nothing but an eight-ball roll on the break. El Gato's life is a Babe Ruth pop-up, sailing beyond the rival gang's catch, hop scotching crime-chalked sidewalks, fleeing police over backyard fences from guard dogs barking, down scuffed alleys where clapping windows and shutting doors applaud him, sliding under a stripped car homeplate, hearing the news Jo-Jo and Sparky got shot, he x's their names off building scorecard-walls for dead. At sixteen, a brown fighting get down impromptu warrior, lip-pursed ooohing fevered to defy, clicking tap shoes on sidewalks, chi chi chi cano, heel to toe, chin to chest, chi chi chi cano, T-shirt rolled to bare midriff, pomade hair back, low-hugging hip khakis, inked-cross on right hand, bandanna'd, top button tied on his Pendelton, lean and mean, haunting us with his gangsta' signs. El Gato learned his history around water-bucket talk, listening to mule-tongued growers mutter holy whys they barbwired lands off, clacking hoe in grower's dirt on skulls and bones of his people murdered and buried in chains. In branding-hot noon he cuts lettuce for bronc-buckled soft palmed land owners posing as frontiersmen, their steer-horn cadillac radios tuned to religious broadcast blaring glory to their godliness, as they loom over him, 'God hates you spic. God hates you! You're dirt, boy, dirt! Even dirt grows weeds, but you, you're dirt that don't grow nothing but more dirt!' Beat purple at nine, wood-paddle whizzing butt bullet stings. El Gato touched washcloth to welted bruises on thighs, legs, back, winced under the shower nozzle, cursing life. His heart the severed head of an outlaw pickled in a jar of liquor and drugs to numb the hurt. Purging his shame for being born, OD'd, was stabbed and shot, wanting to believe he was bad. It was better than falling into darkness where nothing existed but more darkness. He wanted to exist even as dirt, no good dirt. At nineteen, trying to rebuild his life, El Gato got the urge to get high and did – put pistol to his head and played roulette, his bloodshot drunkard's eye seething rage his guardian angel didn't want him dead. The dirt yard pleads for his daughter's laughter, her tricycle treads scribble, You are always gone, in whiskey and drugs, never here to play or help me grow. No heat, light or food. His baby's crying chisels on the headstone of his bones her need for a father, wobbles to a stop when he picks her from the crib, inhales her milky aroma, patting and kissing her, walking her back and forth in the cold living room, warming her with his skin heat, breathing warmth on her, holding her to his chest, humming a deep-chest hymn learned from his grandmother – ' Bendito, bendito, bendito sea dios, los angeles cantan y daban a dios...' ' Blessed, blessed blessed is the lord the angels sing and give to the Lord...' Her tiny hand flexes, a wing unwrinkling from cocoon for flight, fossilized in the stone of his arms. El Gato is two men with one life – he loves her, cares about her feelings, wants to live at home, be a family man, grow old with one woman. But the warrior bares thorny teeth at domesticity, slurs in disgust at the dreamer's naiveté, wants to brawl unafraid of dying young. Tonight his infant is him and he is her. He sees himself as he was born, innocent and perfect, whole life ahead of him, and sees she can become him, no good. He hums her holding tight, melting into one hug humming her 'til dawn thaws frost down window casements into stucco cracks, stray hounds croon in ruts, yeowling cold from jaws, tooth-scratching stickers from paws, he walks and walks his sleeping infant in his arms, humming hurting-man blues. Thinking how to give his family a better life, he strolls the ditch-bank next morning, surprised to see pebbles last night's rain uncovered --blues and greens. He wants his tears to reveal what is covered in him like that. He throws a stone in the irrigation water, where it gasps his child's awe-struck mouth glistens for breath, for a chance at life, glimmering ripples calling him to be a father. El Gato realizes he must start today. Where the stone hits is the center of the ripples, where the stone hits is the center that causes action. Where the stone hits is the beginning, where he is now, is the center. He is the stone, he held in his hand as a kid and threw to see how far it could go. El Gato changed. At twenty one he prays his lightning self carve from thrown away wood-pile days a faith cut deep to the knot-core of his heart, giving him a limb-top buoyancy, awakening, a realization that he was a good man, a good human being, healing emotional earthquakes in himself.
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