Viva Mexico

Jasmine,

I read this last night and overall loved it, but couldn't put more words together than the ones in my quick festival post. I love the title, because you really do bring your memories to life. The imagery is vivid and a great example of how showing works so much better than telling. Your "voice" is really strong here, as in the poem for your brother. It's like you've taken your work to another level. Brava!

I have just a few very small suggestions that may or may not resonate for you:

*  In s2 I'd tighten up the lines "and I can hear my best friend/whispering the priest's sermon to me" by doing something like:

"and my best friend whispers/the priest's sermon/telling me precisely..."

• In that same stanza, I know the repetition of lines works for other readers. I might think about tightening this, too:

telling me precisely when to kneel

and when to stand.

I can still hear the lilt of the words:

siéntese (stand up)

levántese (sit down)
 

• In s 3, I'd put a period or semi-colon at the second to last line and slightly edit the last line of the stanza:

I have never tasted a mango as sweet.

• In s4, I'd move the period after bullshit inside the quotation mark.

I need to continue my comments in another post, as I can't see all of your poem on this comment page. More in a sec!