In his talk last Thursday, Dr. Alvarez brought up some interesting techniques on representing and depicting love in literature, especially in spoken word poetry. One technique that I found most interesting was tying love to place through the use of language: that is, using a local patois, dialect or language to spur memories of place.

In his poems about his childhood neighborhood in Los Angeles, Dr. Alvarez was quick to interject phrases in Spanish, culturally transporting the listeners to Huntington Park. We talked about why this is effective. One woman present at the talk noted how this use of Spanish, however brief, brought back childhood memories of buying cake in the same neighborhood. Hearing him speak these words– as opposed to silently reading them– made the work sensory, all the more real. Coupled with his vivid descriptions and imagery, I could not only visualize the neighborhood, but I could hear it. The use of language placed the poem, rendering it much more evocative.

As a sidenote, there is also an interesting political dimension of using dialect in literature. I am unsure if Dr. Alvarez intended a political meaning with his use of Spanish– it seemed to be more stylistic and reminiscent– but a political dimension is certainly possible. Thinking back to P.P. Pasolini’s use of Roman dialect in his secondo dopoguerra (period after WWII; literally the second “afterwar”) novels, I brought up both the authenticity evoked by and political value of his use of dialect. The careful use of language or dialect, in short, helps us to map and liven our memories: this is clear in Dr. Alvarez’s poetry.