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Porcina: A Voice from the Shadows

by Eleno Robles-Hernandez

117 pages; quality trade paperback (softcover); catalogue #04-2555; ISBN 1-4120-4747-1; US$14.50, C$16.67, EUR11.91, £8.34

This book contains a number of highly-charged poems distilled from the author's life's experiences. An intriguing mixture of bawdy, intense, and self-deprecating works. The crafting and flow of many of the poems is superb.

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About the Book      About the Author      Excerpts      Catalogue Information

About the Book

Porcina: A Voice From the Shadows is a unique and compelling book of poetry. The author has led a fulfilling life despite suffering from a severe lack of self-worth. The book addresses the perpetuity of abuse as seen through the eyes of an abused being. Many of the poems in this book were written years ago. Sometimes the author wrote with the aid of a struggling love affair, often with quarts of black coffee; sometimes in the guest room of a friend, or in a parking lot in El Paso; sometimes from hot springs near Bishop, California or a cabin on San Marcos Pass by Santa Barbara. "I still remember the shock experienced after reading lines written days earlier." The author says about some of his earlier pieces. Many of the poems in this collection retell the end of a relationship and attempts at others, including a May-December relationship that flew in the face of all logic and common sense. The intense emotions resulted in poems such as Obsession, Pedestal and Crimson City. Other pieces, like the surreal Vermillion Grass and Duwa Do, elicit unpredictable responses from the reader. While the tone remains strongly introspective, upbeat works and a number of short stanzas, have been scattered throughout. A number of poems and short works, such as Cokedale, Colorado, Pyramids and Stone Faces are lighter pieces that project the reader to a time and place of their own. Among the dozens of fine works, some readers consider Life & Death In Conjunction, a gritty look at childhood life in Montana in the 1950s, as an instant classic. The poems possess unusual word flow and nuances that pull the reader into the heart of the work.

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About the Author

Eleno Robles Hernandez was born in the border town of Piedras Negras in the Mexican state of Coahuila on the 4th of February 1943. His father, one of thousands of young Mexican American men who were conscripted in the Army, was shipped to the Burma Campaign in WWII. The elder Eleno left his young bride with his family in the Summer of 1942. Upon his return from the War, he returned bitter and disillusioned. He became a migrant labor contractor and later settled in Northwest Montana with his growing family and became a sharecropper. The author, who would eventually have twelve brothers and sisters, joined the Air Force upon graduating from high school in Pocatello, Idaho in 1960 He served for 22 years and retired as a Captain in the Spring of 1982. Eleno has worked in a variety of military, industrial and aerospace assignments. He began writing in the mid-80's and has several screenplays and a definitive book of translations of nearly 50 major and minor Hispanic poets in the works. He began writing poetry in the early 90's and recently completed this book, "porcina-a voice from the shadows", a collection he calls an unblinking look at a blemished life. His daughters Victoria Robles and Renee Corona, and grandson, Jonas, live in Los Angeles. Eleno lives in Dallas, Texas with his wife, Zoila.

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Excerpts

Pyramids

I've walked upon this earth
Without aim or path or bent.
I've crawled among the
Shadows in slums and tenements.

Late Day

Factory of impressions.
All washed away
the odor of unhealthy
bodies and encumbered minds

Tesique Blues

I sit here,
Nude -
As the day
I was born.
The joker
That I am;
Waiting, until all reason
Has vanished,
For the call
That never comes.

Contrition
To Helen who knew me better than air

In the end -
Between the warm hellos
And strained goodbyes
I held my hand out
To a stranger,
Who rebuffed it
With a smile,
And walked away.

Images

Images - holy and ephemeral
Are at my beck and call.
Brilliantly entertaining,
One give rise
at another's fall

Her Shadow

Her shadow
Looms
Above me;
Across
The bland horizon.
I cannot
Find the strength
To crawl away.

Parachute

I come to you - sweet woman;
Fully naked and alone.
I do not have a parachute
To save me from the storm.

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Catalogue Information

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