As most anthologies inevitably have, there are a few poems here that don't speak to me, but the rest just floor me. I love this book. Great stuff, Suarez and Van Cleave. Good, solid choices.

it was delightful. I'm not even a fan of poetry, but this is the only book I didn't sell back this semester. I was surprised by how powerful so many of the poems were. Really a good book, one of the best I've read in awhile.

This is an exceptional anthology for teaching students about contemporary poetry, and the experience of being exiled. I can't believe such a book finally exists. It makes my job easier as a teacher of English where the poetry lesson has always been such a hard-fought battle to win. I highly recommend it to all teachers (9th-College).

Reading many of the poem collections in Banyan makes me feel like I belong to them. Poems like Aguacero, Blisters, or Chickens remind me of the blue collar work that my father has done his whole life to support his family. In all three of these poems, the first lines are "my father", which triggers in me a feeling of family that I will always relate to.
Blisters has is specially graphic, and I relate to the way minor injuries were dealt with at home. These poems scream humanity into a Cuban Culture that has been denied the right to vocalize it.

If you've ever lost someone special to you or in specific your father, this book of poetry goes beyond catharsis. I recently lost my father and I myself am Cuban-American, so I guess that's why I connected so well with this book, especially Letter to Cuba. This book is one of the reasons I even started to think of writing about my own father and what eventually led me to getting back into my own poetry. So if you enjoy poetry about love, loss, happiness, and grief this is the book for you.

This is the third book of poetry that I have bought of Suarez's, and it has lived up to the expectations laid down by the other books I have (You Come Singing and In the Republic of Longing). All of Suarez's poetry has a beautifully musical quality that, although being very poetic, is not convoluted and difficult to understand. He focuses on the experience of being a Cuban-born man. Sometimes his poems are strictly about the experience of being a boy in Castro's Cuba and the people that he knew there (told in retrospection) such as "Tito the Barber," while other poems ring of his present life in north Florida; but always with the reflection of his roots, such as "Hipolito." And when I read the poem entitled,"Tallahassee," I can see it in my mind: "Where water leads to water, deep ocean of azure. Here,/in this land of pollen, the water stagnates,/becomes green with duckweed or rots. The tadpoles perish . . ."

Any lover of poetry with an accent would not be disappointed with Garabato Poems.

Once again, Suarez writes intriguing stories about his life as a Cuban immigrant whose father was exiled when he was only seven years old. This books is worth every penny and then some.

Latin Jazz is a creative, sensitive look into the life of a Cuban family living in Los Angeles and the struggles they face in reconciling their current life with what they had and could have had in pre-revolution Cuba. This is an absolutely wonderful book. I urge everyone to find a copy and read it--you won't be sorry.

These are poems of Tallahassee and Havana, and the often-uneasy connection between. In Tallahassee, perhaps I have seen Mongo, his basset hound, but I haven't been to Havana, nor seen the Chupacabras (goat sucker). In Havana are the sugar cane fields, in Tallahassee an occasional sugar stalk found in the grocer "Tucked under a box of Holland tomatoes".

There are poems of animals, of hawks, of mosquito zappers, and songs of oxtail soup. There is a section on duende -- which may refer to Lorca's mysterious inspirational force, a sort of "trickster who meddles and stirs" up trouble.

These poems are also about exile, of leaving and wanting to get back, of freedom, but without luxury. There are also touching poems of exile from a father no longer here, but who spoke of an "in-between-ness of spirit that occurs in immigrants".

I stumbled upon Palm Crows by chance at a bookstore while vacationing in San Antonio. I was taken by the cover photo depicting four winter clad viejos with a tropical background. As I read through this collection of poetry I understood how displaced the poet felt, perhaps as much as the gentlemen on the cover appeared to be. This collection is solid and truthful. As an immigrant I can relate to these poems. The images are pure, original and waste no time with fancy words meant to sugar coat. This is the real stuff. The reason poetry should be written.

I read this book twice because it was so unusual. I like the way it blends fiction, poetry, and essays into a congruous whole. Very nice work. I highly recommend this for anyone interested in learning about the Cuban-American experience.

This is a perfect book for the "Gusanos" of Miami and elsewhere who want to restore the Batista horrors in Cuba; but, it is genuinely disappointing for anyone who wants to learn about modern Cuba.

The author, born in Cuba in 1962, left when he was eight years old. Such is his expertise. I was in Cuba when Fidel Castro took power, and never heard a kind word about the thugs and murderers the Batista regime inflicted upon Cubans in order to maintain their pampered privilege. The book offers no sympathy or understanding of what life was like under Batista; but, it's filled with the so-called horrors of life in Cuba since then.

Granted, there are Russians who genuinely miss the law, order and good government of Joseph Stalin. So, it's hardly surprising there are Cubans who miss the good ol' days of Batista, when it really meant something to have money, power, position and privilege. This book is little more than a pampered pout about the passing of the old regime; anyone who wants to get a feeling about what it is like to live under tyranny needs only read 'One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovitch."

Most patriotic Cubans who have any sense of the history of their people are grateful for the many accomplishments of the Castro regime. Having achieved a great deal, they want to be free to accomplish much more on their own. Their disillusionment with Castro is not that he made life better for 80 percent of the people; it's that he's terrified of giving people the freedom to make life better for themselves.

The Cuban success in the US is remarkable, and shows what free Cubans can accomplish. But, they did not need to condemn 80 percent of their fellows to poverty and misery to succeed. In Cuba, the tyranny of Batista kept most of the population in poverty and terror; now, the tyranny of Castro keeps the majority of the population from soaring to the heights of their own individual success. Batista produced terror, Castro produces mediocrity. Take your pick as to which is worse.

Suarez shows no signs of understanding the difference. That makes this a great book for Gusanos, but useless for anyone interested in modern Cuba or the difference between tyranny and the freedom to be an individual.

Boy, Suarez is a fine writer. I've read four of his books now and each one is a keeper. What a pleasure it is to read the work of a true language craftsman! Bravo!

why are so many reviews of poetry books on here (like the two others on this page) clearly written by the author and/or his minions? i mean, who talks about the production values of a book other than the author? if you're going to pump up your own book at least be subtle about it.

the stars here are not for the quality of this book (which is solid) but the sordid practice of pretending to be a reader when you are either the author or his collaborator.

This book just took my breathe away--I can't put it down. It's first-rate poetry and I love every poem. Suarez is a master of the image, a Hemingwayesque writer who knows how to write zingers.

YOU COME SINGING is a stunner. I can't say enough about how nice it looks physically, not to mention the power of the poems within. If I were to write a book of poetry, I'd like to have the energy and poignancy of Mr. Suarez's writing as well as the fine production quality of the good people at Tia Chucha in my corner. Great stuff.