Color Red In Natalie Diaz's 'When My Brother Was An Aztec'?

Natalie Diaz writes about the hard experiences of life she and many others have faced. Her poetry exhibits elements of dark beauty, sorrow and sadness. Poems where death is welcomed but is nowhere to be found. In “When My Brother Was an Aztec” Natalie Diaz uses the color red as a symbol. The color red is prevalent in many of her poems to uphold and emphasize the struggle and hardship interwoven in her poetry. Red to symbolize death, pain, danger, love and many other emotions. In the poem Self-Portrait as a Chimera “A bandit born with masked eyes. El Maragato’s thigh wound glittering like red lace.” The color red signifies pain, signifying the pain and the struggle of a wounded man.
Diaz also uses powerful imagery and allusion in her work.