Celebrate Hispanic Heritage Month with Poetry!

Click on the title of each poem to read it in full. And visit poets.org to browse a much wider selection of poems in honor of Hispanic Heritage Month. 

"One day I will write you a letter/ after I have gathered enough words/ that blossom without thorns..."-- from "gathering words" by María Luisa Arroyo

"Tell me what it is to be the thing rooted in shadow./ To be the thing not touched by light (no that's not it)/ to not even need the light? I envy; I envy that." -- from "Notes on the Below" by Ada Limón

"The campesino takes off his ht--/ As a sign of respect/ toward the fury of the wind..."-- from "Problems with Hurricanes" by Victor Hernández Cruz

"if i'm going to expore my nationality, i have to be recognizable. this is what everyone knows. in fact, if i'm not recognizable, it's as if i had no nation." -- from "notes on the seasons" by Raquel Salas Rivera

"please note: each word must be a catacomb,/ must be a sepulcher and must be a/ cradle in some sort of aporía/ where bodies draw on song as guns are drawn..." -- from "No Longer Ode" by Urayoán Noel

"The translator knows that nothing the poet has ever said or written/ reveals as much about him as the expression on his face when he/ was asked to pose for a picture..." -- from "On Translation" by Mónica  de la Torre

"In that childhood place and border place/ The Fourth of July, like everything else,/ It meant more than just one thing." -- from "Day of the Refugios" by Alberto Ríos

"Somewhere there are phantoms having their/own funerals over and over again. The same// scene for centuries. The same moon rolling/down the gutter of the same sky..." -- from "Do Not Speak of the Dead" by Cecilia Llompart