Martín Espada’s poem “Image the Angels of Bread” is created with a combination of visionary and angry disgust with injustice in things such as slavery, immigration, and labor. Espada uses specific comparison to inspire revolutionary thinking, while also using grotesque and blunt diction to establish a tone of disgust and anger. Espada uses historical content which could correlates with that of a specific country, but there is not enough evidence to indicate a specific focus. His background as a tenant lawyer also provides specific speculation on his tones and claims presented in the poem. Martín Espada provides an intriguing combination of dream versus reality and anger versus compassion to identify injustices in the world and throughout history. …show more content…
The lines that stick out the most in the final stanza are “the angels of bread” (line 65) which is important to review because of its presence in the title: “Imagine the Angles of Bread”. The “angles of bread” is mostly likely an illusion to the scripture of Psalms 78 in the Bible. The scripture tells of God’s command to spread the “praises of the Lord” and to encourage faithfulness in the Lord rather than repeat the stubbornness and rebelliousness of the former generation. The main course of the scripture highlights the disobedience and doubt of the Lord that leads them to challenge God. God was angry but “He commanded the clouds above and opened the doors of heaven; He rained down manna upon them to eat and gave them food from heaven. Man did eat the bread of angels; He sent them food in abundance” (Psalms 78: 23-24). God gives them what they desire but while their mouths are still full with the bread of angles, his wrath falls upon them and they are killed. This illusion is suggesting that much like those who doubted God in the scripture, those who allowed injustice become victim to their own wrongdoings and created themselves into misguided individuals, thus causing the destruction of themselves and