dizzy in your eyes: poems about love written by pat mora

Mora, Pat. Dizzy in Your Eyes: Poems About Love. New York: Random House Inc., 2010. ISBN: 9780375843754

Plot Summary:
      Various poems depicting the emotions people go through as they experience love are collectively compiled in this title. Through these poems, the author takes her audience through a myriad of emotions as she details all kinds of love varying from the love of a pet to the love of your first crush. These poems question your own understanding of love and the relationships we all hold dear and true.

Critical Analysis:
     Dizzy in Your Eyes is a compilation of fifty poems detailing the emotions of love. The author, Pat Mora, subtly incorporates Hispanic cultural markers such as interlingualism and the struggles that one may succumb due to language barriers. Within the poem titled Spanish, the author, Pat Mora, incorporates various inclusions of Spanish terminology and the Spanish language such as, "Porque estas tan quieta?" Along with these inclusions, the author also details how hard it is for a Hispanic girl to go to school because she struggles to comprehend English. Because of this description, the author allows her audience to take a look on the inside of literacy issues that those who may not speak fluent English deal with on a day-to-day basis. The author subtly incorporates Hispanic cultural authenticity within this compilation; however, she emphasizes more on love itself.

Review Excerpts:

"In the introductory material readers learn that most of the poems started out as free verse in which Mora addresses various forms of love—filial, boyfriends, pets and just those warm fuzzy feeling caused by caring for someone or something. Mora decided to take some of her poems and put them into forms some of which like tercet, tanka, letter, pantoum, sestina and villanelle are not all that familiar while sonnet, cinquian, haiku, dialogue and list are much more familiar formats. The effect is to create a varied collection held together by the subject of love. Some poems will bring back memories of first love, friendships that lasted through school but were shattered when it came time for the prom. Perhaps that one held a special significance because it stayed with me-the boy whose company you have enjoyed for years asks someone else to the prom, (your heart almost stops.) There are wonderful poems celebrating an older couple's long life together, family outings and the unfailing love of parents and unquestioning love of a pet for its owner or vice versa. One of the poetic forms used to great effect is the tercet (Revenge X3) where a young man slips the same note to three girls, but finally gets his comeuppance. Yet another wonderful poem, Sisters,extols all the positive aspects of sisterhood. A nice item to be shared with ones own sisters. Teachers should be able to make effective use of this collection and students are bound to find several poems that will resonate." - Children's Literature 

"Celebrated author and speaker Mora offers encouragement by example in this appealing and evocative poetry collection that spans the rainbow of different types of love as well as provides an array of poetry forms. Many poems are snapshots or vignettes of the myriad emotions and angst experienced during young adulthood. The love is at times simple, innocent, and playful and at other times celebrates those important people such as mothers and teachers. Finally there is the new, intense, dizzy but sometimes scary and often unrequited love. For example in the pantoum form "Dumped," Mora writes "me, a lump you dumped, casually," which conveys a feeling almost all teens will experience. While in the villanelle, "Our Private Rhyme," she offers "I feel you near. We're intertwined." The choices of poetry are arranged in a cycle which parallels that of love itself and mirrors a song with four movements. The poems run the gamut of emotions and offer glimpses into the heart and head as well as the creative soul. There are helpful and informative footnotes throughout the text that describe the various styles of poetic form used in the poem on the following page. One poem is even offered in both English and the author's native Spanish. This collection may be used to stimulate young adults to attempt their own poetry and could easily be employed as a classroom tool." - VOYA 

"A collection of poems written in various forms, each narrated in a different teen voice. According to the author's note, Mora envisioned the flow of the poems as that of a symphony with four movements—an opening focus on love's initial rush, followed by a few bumps in the road, healing after loss of love, and finally the joy of finding new love. This cohesion is indeed delivered. Peppered with Spanish, the selections define the emotion in countless ways. The quiet lyricism of some lines will prompt many readers to roll them over and over on their tongues; this is a world in which a simple smile can make a boy feel as if he's "swallowed the sun" or one's worst fear might be a kiss "dull like oatmeal." Where relevant, poetic form is indicated, defined, and discussed on the adjacent page. For all its beauty, this collection is also, in some ways, hard to pin down. The jacket copy and title might lead one to expect a focus on the intensity of teen romantic love. The love here is neither hot and heavy nor clichéd, however, but rather a glimpse into the last remaining innocence of the teen years. At times, the narration even slips a bit astray from an authentically teenage voice. Those expecting a more typical raw, edgy approach to love with poetry akin to the ramblings of a teenager's journal will be better off elsewhere. Teachers in need of a fresh new avenue for teaching poetic form, lovers of language, and teens in search of a broader definition of love will find it here." - School Library Journal 

Connections:
Some titles purchased by customers who also purchased this title include: Secret Saturdays, Surface Tension, and All Unquiet Things.

Interactivity:

• Ask children if they have ever felt left out because of something they felt like they didn't grasp as fast as other children.
• Facilitate a discussion based around the things they love the most and why they love them.
• Have children write a short poem on the thing they love the most and then have them choose a noun and replace it with the Spanish translation of that word.