Through the collection of poetry from the works titled, When My Brother Was An Aztec, Natalie Diaz delves deep into her childhood trauma through very imaginative and often unexpected ways. This collection is broken up into three sections, the first section focuses on the racism and oppression that Diaz experienced growing up as a Native American woman with poems such as “The Gospel of Guy No-Horse” which approaches this topic through humor. The second section of poems emphasizes how Diaz was consumed by her bother and his drug habits through poems like “How to Go to Dinner with a Brother on Drugs.” While section three concentrates on Diaz’s life outside of her brother through poems such as “Toward the Amaranth Gates of War or Love.” Although
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She utilizes these metaphors to connect her family members and her family life to more magical elements in order to distance herself from the personal material that she is writing about. For example, as suggested by the title When My Brother Was an Aztec as well as the first poem of the collection Diaz uses the metaphor of her brother being an Aztec. By characterizing her brother as a fallen Aztec king, Diaz becomes, by extension, the warrior sister fighting to rescue her brother from the negative influences, drugs, corrupting him. This metaphor serves as a way for Diaz to remove herself and her brother from her writing since she was exploring very vunerable topics that could easily offend her family. There are a plethora of these metaphors throughout the entire collection of poetry. In the opening poem, “When My Brother Was An Aztec” (Diaz,1). Diaz skillfully explores her brothers destructive path with the …show more content…
He is a Cheshire cat, a gang of grins.
His new face all jaw, all smile and bite.
Look at your brother-he is Borges’s bestiary.
He is a zoo of imaginary beings. (105-111)
In this poem Diaz explores her brother’s addiction to drugs and how she is walking a fine line between telling her brother the truth about his appearance and behavior while still avoiding the inevitable fight that would ensue if the conversation takes a wrong turn. Diaz illustrates the page with the struggle of waiting for a loved one to smarten up and not fall back into the repetitive patterns over and over again through these metaphors of “he is a Cheshire cat” (108). The Cheshire cat is a fictional cat popularized by Lewis Carroll from Alice in Wonderland, he was known for his distinctive mischievous grin and deceitful personality. This metaphor can be connected back to how Diaz feels about her brother’s drug addiction since he is deceiving when it comes to getting help for his addiction. There is also the metaphor of “he is a zoo of imaginary beings” (111), which speaks about Diaz’s own pain and anguish of watching her brother addicted to drugs and the heartbreak of watching her parents struggle to save her brother but failing time after time. Since he has become consumed by the drugs and they no longer recognize the son they once knew. All of these metaphors skillfully placed throughout Diaz’s poetry serve to strengthen her message in conveying the struggles she
She utilizes these metaphors to connect her family members and her family life to more magical elements in order to distance herself from the personal material that she is writing about. For example, as suggested by the title When My Brother Was an Aztec as well as the first poem of the collection Diaz uses the metaphor of her brother being an Aztec. By characterizing her brother as a fallen Aztec king, Diaz becomes, by extension, the warrior sister fighting to rescue her brother from the negative influences, drugs, corrupting him. This metaphor serves as a way for Diaz to remove herself and her brother from her writing since she was exploring very vunerable topics that could easily offend her family. There are a plethora of these metaphors throughout the entire collection of poetry. In the opening poem, “When My Brother Was An Aztec” (Diaz,1). Diaz skillfully explores her brothers destructive path with the …show more content…
He is a Cheshire cat, a gang of grins.
His new face all jaw, all smile and bite.
Look at your brother-he is Borges’s bestiary.
He is a zoo of imaginary beings. (105-111)
In this poem Diaz explores her brother’s addiction to drugs and how she is walking a fine line between telling her brother the truth about his appearance and behavior while still avoiding the inevitable fight that would ensue if the conversation takes a wrong turn. Diaz illustrates the page with the struggle of waiting for a loved one to smarten up and not fall back into the repetitive patterns over and over again through these metaphors of “he is a Cheshire cat” (108). The Cheshire cat is a fictional cat popularized by Lewis Carroll from Alice in Wonderland, he was known for his distinctive mischievous grin and deceitful personality. This metaphor can be connected back to how Diaz feels about her brother’s drug addiction since he is deceiving when it comes to getting help for his addiction. There is also the metaphor of “he is a zoo of imaginary beings” (111), which speaks about Diaz’s own pain and anguish of watching her brother addicted to drugs and the heartbreak of watching her parents struggle to save her brother but failing time after time. Since he has become consumed by the drugs and they no longer recognize the son they once knew. All of these metaphors skillfully placed throughout Diaz’s poetry serve to strengthen her message in conveying the struggles she