Richard Blanco is the quintessential example of a poet paying homage to his family. His collection of poems begin about the speaker's mother who brought him into the world and end with the speaker contemplating his role in the world. The speaker's mother is respected and is regarded highly: as the queen of picking fruits in "Mother Picking Produce." Although the title is kind of superficial, Blanco reveals to the readers, not so superficial details:
I see all the folklore of your childhood, the fields.
the fruit she once picked from the very tree,
the wiry roots she pulled out of the very ground.

As his mother "moves with same instinct and skill" when she was a child, the mother's youthfulness and playful personality jumps out at the reader. The speaker chooses descriptive words, like describing his mother fingers as "slender digits" to pull the roots of her being even deeper into the poem. And Just as Blanco's father did not teach him how to shave in "Shaving", his mother does not outright share with her son, this special connection she has with the produce:
Scratches the oranges then smells the peel,
presses an avocado just enough to judge its ripeness,
polishes the Macintoshes searching for bruises.
But Blanco takes note: "and what I think is this,a new poem about her-"

Most of his poems make the reader hungry, inspired, sad and happy. I pictured pouring mouthfuls of his words into my lap, as to save them for later when I wrote my poems about my mom and dad. So, yes Blanco's poems are personal and resonant with my culture. But, nonetheless, the connection of a mother figure is significant to every writer.

"Ballade of a Boy" is written in ballad form. A ballad is a poem that tells a story with clear conflict, tension buildup and a satisfying resolution. As far as a satisfying resolution Urayoán Noel writes about a family member that he saw "one last time by the porch screen." The speaker writes from a place of in-between. Perhaps, it is about a family member who migrates back and forth from Mexico.
Lara Hamza's poems are eerie and brave. They are brave because she reveals the darker side of a family's secrets and shame. In the poem "On Eating" she chews the steak her father cooked: "I cut it into ten tiny pieces...I chewed slowly, counting to twenty-five each time. Then "I went to the bathroom, stuck two fin-
gers deep inside my throat, and threw up my meal. This is how I started
eating again. It took a while to learn how to keep things inside."
The word fingers is separated to pronounce the piece's visual of two fingers inside her throat. This is fascinating to witness on the page.

The father is the one who cooked the steak, not the mother.
This may suggest that in some way the family, although "gathered around the dinner table" sounds very happy and put together, the speaker follows with"
"I knew they didn't expect me to eat because for almost a year, I had stopped."
The father says, don't worry as if to assure not only his wife but it seems that he has been saying that about their daughter over the years. This poem is an example of a family that struggles with self-abuse, depression and hate towards one's body.


~Melissa