Overview

From sensual pleasures and perils, moments and memories of darkness and light, the poems in Orlando Ricardo Menes's collection sew together stories of dislocation and loss, of survival and hope, and of a world patched together by a family over five generations of diaspora. This is Menes's tapestry of the Americas. From Miami to Cuba, Panama to Bolivia and Peru, through the textures, sounds, colors, shapes, and scents of exile and emigration, we find refuge at last in a sense of wholeness and belonging residing in this intensely felt, finely crafted poetry.

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Reviews

""Orlando Ricardo Menes's Fetish is a rare work of the American Creole Sublime, conjuring visions of his Cuban homeland as a sacred geography of vanquished mestizo dreams, his Florida boyhood a world of transmuting tropical wonder. At once mythic, syncretic, and autobiographical, transported on strains of epiphanic geomancy, Menes's work subtly presents a new vision of America that Marti, Stevens and Walcott would all embrace. You want to whisper in a fever, 'Adelante!'"" - John Phillip Santos, University Distinguished Scholar in Mestizo Cultural Studies, University of Texas at San Antonio ""It is a magic-carpet ride - because the carpet is the tapestry of the Americas and its characters of tobacconists and capitalists and miners and fathers, and the magic is the language, the 'maracas of rain,' and the 'orchids that grow in gessoed moonlight.' What a wild ride; what a wild and lovely and passionate and closely observed ride."" - Beth Ann Fennelly, author of Unmentionables ""Drenched with the flavor and savor of the Caribbean, Orlando Ricardo Menes's Fetish is a treat for the mouth and the ear, as well as for the mind. Striking characters abound: Zvi Mendel, 'retired tobacconist to Havana's Ashkenazim'; an unnamed female survivor of a prison called 'Den of the Lioness.' Anger at injustice often surfaces. The beauty of the region springs up everywhere. But it is sound that powers these poems, a piquant blend of English spiced with Espanol... These delectable poems beg to be tasted. To be spoken. To be sung."" - Charles Harper Webb, author of Shadow Ball ""Open Orlando Ricardo Menes's exquisite poetry collection Fetish, and you'll quickly see a folk sculpture of Eleggua, though I should warn you. In the Cuban Santeria religion, this deity has 101 manifestations, or roads, he may take you down. In this way, he is not unlike Menes's poems, which may lead us, in a matter of pages, from suburban Indiana to Miami to Panama to Kichwa-speaking villages in the Andes. Although the destinies of these roads offer vastly different insights, if we survive them, there is a sensibility that unifies the whole: Menes does not easily identify with grand ideologies and personal arrogance. Rather, he keeps his eye on those who go largely unrecorded by history: a poor great-uncle alienated from his own family by politics, a daughter with severe ADHD, a papa assiduously mending used furniture, a political prisoner who survives cruelty by caring for the earth's smallest creatures - lame rat, pregnant mouse, chirping cricket."" - Maurice Kilwein Guevara, author of Poema and Postmortem

Well versed in the uprooted life of an immigrant, Menes's profound references not only convey local color but also bring the essence of his family history eye level with the reader in these striking verses. -World Literature Today World Literature Today The poems in the collection are powerful, yet engaging narratives crafted by a gifted poet and story-teller. -Mary Alexander, Caribbean Writer -- Mary Alexander Caribbean Writer Drenched with the flavor and savor of the Caribbean, Orlando Ricardo Menes's Fetish is a treat for the mouth and the ear, as well as for the mind. Striking characters abound: Zvi Mendel, 'retired tobacconist to Havana's Ashkenazim'; an unnamed female survivor of a prison called 'Den of the Lioness.' Anger at injustice often surfaces. The beauty of the region springs up everywhere. But it is sound that powers these poems, a piquant blend of English spiced with Espanol... These delectable poems beg to be tasted. To be spoken. To be sung. -Charles Harper Webb, author of Shadow Ball -- Charles Harper Webb Open Orlando Ricardo Menes's exquisite poetry collection Fetish, and you'll quickly see a folk sculpture of Eleggua, though I should warn you. In the Cuban Santeria religion, this deity has 101 manifestations, or roads, he may take you down. In this way, he is not unlike Menes's poems, which may lead us, in a matter of pages, from suburban Indiana to Miami to Panama to Kichwa-speaking villages in the Andes. Although the destinies of these roads offer vastly different insights, if we survive them, there is a sensibility that unifies the whole: Menes does not easily identify with grand ideologies and personal arrogance. Rather, he keeps his eye on those who go largely unrecorded by history: a poor great-uncle alienated from his own family by politics, a daughter with severe ADHD, a papa assiduously mending used furniture, a political prisoner who survives cruelty by caring for the earth's smallest creatures-lame rat, pregnant mouse, chirping cricket. -Maurice Kilwein Guevara, author of Poema and Postmortem -- Maurice Kilwein Guevara Orlando Ricardo Menes's Fetish is a rare work of the American Creole Sublime, conjuring visions of his Cuban homeland as a sacred geography of vanquished mestizo dreams, his Florida boyhood a world of transmuting tropical wonder. At once mythic, syncretic, and autobiographical, transported on strains of epiphanic geomancy, Menes's work subtly presents a new vision of America that Marti, Stevens and Walcott would all embrace. You want to whisper in a fever, 'Adelante!' -John Phillip Santos, University Distinguished Scholar in Mestizo Cultural Studies, University of Texas at San Antonio -- John Phillip Santos It is a magic-carpet ride-because the carpet is the tapestry of the Americas and its characters of tobacconists and capitalists and miners and fathers, and the magic is the language, the 'maracas of rain,' and the 'orchids that grow in gessoed moonlight.' What a wild ride; what a wild and lovely and passionate and closely observed ride. -Beth Ann Fennelly, author of Unmentionables -- Beth Ann Fennelly

Orlando Ricardo Menes's Fetish is a rare work of the American Creole Sublime, conjuring visions of his Cuban homeland as a sacred geography of vanquished mestizo dreams, his Florida boyhood a world of transmuting tropical wonder. At once mythic, syncretic, and autobiographical, transported on strains of epiphanic geomancy, Menes's work subtly presents a new vision of America that Marti, Stevens and Walcott would all embrace. You want to whisper in a fever, 'Adelante!' - John Phillip Santos, University Distinguished Scholar in Mestizo Cultural Studies, University of Texas at San Antonio It is a magic-carpet ride - because the carpet is the tapestry of the Americas and its characters of tobacconists and capitalists and miners and fathers, and the magic is the language, the 'maracas of rain,' and the 'orchids that grow in gessoed moonlight.' What a wild ride; what a wild and lovely and passionate and closely observed ride. - Beth Ann Fennelly, author of Unmentionables Drenched with the flavor and savor of the Caribbean, Orlando Ricardo Menes's Fetish is a treat for the mouth and the ear, as well as for the mind. Striking characters abound: Zvi Mendel, 'retired tobacconist to Havana's Ashkenazim'; an unnamed female survivor of a prison called 'Den of the Lioness.' Anger at injustice often surfaces. The beauty of the region springs up everywhere. But it is sound that powers these poems, a piquant blend of English spiced with Espanol... These delectable poems beg to be tasted. To be spoken. To be sung. - Charles Harper Webb, author of Shadow Ball Open Orlando Ricardo Menes's exquisite poetry collection Fetish, and you'll quickly see a folk sculpture of Eleggua, though I should warn you. In the Cuban Santeria religion, this deity has 101 manifestations, or roads, he may take you down. In this way, he is not unlike Menes's poems, which may lead us, in a matter of pages, from suburban Indiana to Miami to Panama to Kichwa-speaking villages in the Andes. Although the destinies of these roads offer vastly different insights, if we survive them, there is a sensibility that unifies the whole: Menes does not easily identify with grand ideologies and personal arrogance. Rather, he keeps his eye on those who go largely unrecorded by history: a poor great-uncle alienated from his own family by politics, a daughter with severe ADHD, a papa assiduously mending used furniture, a political prisoner who survives cruelty by caring for the earth's smallest creatures - lame rat, pregnant mouse, chirping cricket. - Maurice Kilwein Guevara, author of Poema and Postmortem

Open Orlando Ricardo Menes's exquisite poetry collection Fetish, and you'll quickly see a folk sculpture of Eleggua, though I should warn you. In the Cuban Santeria religion, this deity has 101 manifestations, or roads, he may take you down. In this way, he is not unlike Menes's poems, which may lead us, in a matter of pages, from suburban Indiana to Miami to Panama to Kichwa-speaking villages in the Andes. Although the destinies of these roads offer vastly different insights, if we survive them, there is a sensibility that unifies the whole: Menes does not easily identify with grand ideologies and personal arrogance. Rather, he keeps his eye on those who go largely unrecorded by history: a poor great-uncle alienated from his own family by politics, a daughter with severe ADHD, a papa assiduously mending used furniture, a political prisoner who survives cruelty by caring for the earth's smallest creatures--lame rat, pregnant mouse, chirping cricket. --Maurice Kilwein Guevara, author of Poema and Postmortem<br> --Maurice Kilwein Guevara (03/05/2013)

Author Information

Orlando Ricardo Menes is an associate professor of English and Faculty Fellow of the Institute for Latino Studies at the University of Notre Dame. His poetry collections include, among others, Furia: Poems and Rumba atop the Stones.

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