MULTICULTURAL POETRY

YUM! ¡MMMM! ¡QUE RICO! AMERICAS’ SPROUTINGS

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Mora, Pat. 2017. Yum! ¡Qué Rico! Americas’ Sproutings. Ill. by Rafael López. New York: Lee & Low Books.  ISBN 9781584302711.

SUMMARY

In this collection, Pat Mora honors various foods that are indigenous to the Americas.  Written in haiku form, each poem focuses on a specific food, and a short description explains where the food originates and what the food is known for.

CRITICAL ANALYSIS

The Poet

Pat Mora is a well-known Mexican American author and poet. Much of her writing focuses on cultural diversity, namely the Latino/a culture along the United States-Mexico border.  She is known for including code switching in her works, which helps promote multiculturalism, a major focus and purpose of hers.  She was the recipient of the 2015 Texas Writer Award, the 2006 Pura Belpré Honor Award, and the 2009 International Latino Book Award for Best Children’s Picture Book, among others.

Layout

In a note to the reader at the end of the book, Mora explains that she combined her desire to write a book about foods indigenous to the Americas with her desire to write her first book of haiku to produce this book.  She consulted many books and resources to research the origins of the foods that she presents in her poems.

Yum! ¡Qué Rico! Americas’ Sproutings consists of 14 haiku written about foods such as chiles, pineapples, peanuts, and papayas.  All poems are thematically linked around foods and are thus arranged accordingly. Each poem is accompanied by an illustration by Rafael López, all of which enhance the subject of the poems. López’s artwork is vivid and colorful, accentuating the richness of both the foods and the culture they come from. Bold yellows, reds, and oranges pop on every page, making it visually appealing for readers but not overshadowing the poems themselves. Also, a short written description of each food is provided on the page opposite to the poem. This gives readers background information on where the food comes from as well as interesting facts about the food item.

Poetic Elements

As haiku are short poems by nature, Mora carefully weaves other poetic elements to make her writing shine.  She intertwines both the concrete and the abstract in each poem, just as when she concretely describes the “hard, brown shells” and abstractly describes the “crunchy taste of fall” of pecans.  The poems in this collection strictly follow the haiku form: 5 syllables in the first line, 7 syllables in the second line, and 5 syllables in the third line. This creates a steady rhythm that is distinct, yet similar in each poem.

Mora uses various sound techniques through her haiku.  In “Potato,” for instance, she uses alliteration to describe the “brown bundle” that grows underground. She also uses assonance in “Chile” when she says Dad “laughs when tears fill his eyes, sighs,” stressing the long i vowel sound and simultaneously creating internal rhyme.  Another sound technique Mora uses is onomatopoeia, such as when she describes the way a cranberry “POPS!” or when she describes the “juicy splatter” of a tomato in your mouth.

In this collection, Mora also infuses her poems with figurative language to bring her subject matter to life.  She primarily relies on metaphor to carry meaning across to the reader. In “Blueberry,” for instance, she describes a bowl of blueberries as a “bowl heaped with summer,” comparing this fruit to summer and, thus, evoking feelings of fun.  Mora also uses personification to help the reader visualize the experiences and emotions in her poems. For instance, in “Chocolate,” Mora writes that “your eyes dance” when “Brown magic melts on your tongue,” allowing readers to connect to the positive feelings that chocolate brings to them.

The imagery used in this collection is concise yet strong, fitting for the haiku form.  By appealing to the senses, Mora creates vivid pictures and experiences for the readers, such as in “Corn” where she describes the way “Leaves sprout [a] silk-snug house,” allowing readers to picture the hair-like tassel that is enveloped in the corn leaves.  She then goes on to describe the scent of “grits, tortillas, corn bread,” further adding to the reader’s sensory experience.

Mora’s haiku collection presents a playful, yet informative tone.  “Pineapple,” for example, lightheartedly describes the “stiff, spiky hat” that tops pineapples.  Readers will delight in learning new things about these indigenous foods of the Americans as well as in the playfulness of Mora’s style. 

Appeal

Yum! ¡Qué Rico! Americas’ Sproutings will definitely appeal to any reader, whether old or young.  Young children will enjoy the short haiku form while older readers will appreciate the structure of the haiku form as well.  The vivid descriptions and playful use of language make this collection memorable, as it will encourage readers to see foods in new, different, creative ways.  Mora’s additional explanations on the foods will interest readers as well, as rich information about their history is fascinating.  Readers of Latino backgrounds will especially relate to and enjoy the colorful illustrations as well as Mora’s writing style, as they will identify with the Spanish language that is integrated into some of the poems. Non-Spanish readers will also expand their linguistic abilities as they learn some Spanish words, which Mora provides definitions for in the beginning of her book.

Overall Quality

Mora’s haiku poems strongly evoke sensory images, giving her poems immense literary quality.  Mora experiments with various ways of presenting each haiku, such as by creating end-stopped lines as in “Blueberry” and using enjambment in others like “Papaya.” Although the poems do not rhyme, they 5-7-5 syllable lines create a rhythmic, musical sound that is further accentuated by Mora’s playful diction.  To better capture certain emotions and images, Mora uses the Spanish language, such as when describing prickly pears that become “dulces,” or candies. In this way, she is able to imaginatively and creatively fulfill the haiku form in a way that appeals to Spanish speakers and that invites non-Spanish speakers to hear the beauty of the Spanish language.

SPOTLIGHT POEM AND ACTIVITIES

“Tomato” by Pat Mora

Round roly-poly

squirts seedy, juicy splatter.

Red bursts in your mouth.

In “Tomato,” Mora expertly uses alliteration, onomatopoeia.  When read aloud, this poem invites readers to enjoy the sounds as much as the imagery. The repeated s sounds add a musical quality to the poem, and the “splatter” will appeal to not only the readers’ ears but sight as well. This is also a great poem to emphasize effective imagery to students as it creatively describes many components of a tomato, from the round exterior to the seedy interior.

I would introduce this poem by bringing in a tomato and asking students to describe it. In groups, students would brainstorm lists for the following: What a Tomato Looks Like, What a Tomato Sounds Like, What a Tomato Tastes Like, What a Tomato Smells Like, and What a Tomato Feels Like. I would then lead a discussion about the uses of tomatoes by asking questions such as, “What do we use tomatoes for? What foods have you eaten that use tomatoes as an ingredient? What foods do you think would taste better with tomatoes?” After this discussion, I would tell students that the poem we will read, “Tomato” by Pat Mora, describes a tomato in just three short lines. During reading, I would stop and ask students what they visualize after each line. After reading, we would model our own haiku after this one on different foods.