The Outs And Ins Of Julia Alvarez

The Outs and Ins of Julia Alvarez Writing poetry for a profession is a very challenging task, but taking up poetry as well as writing novels is even harder. Julia Alvarez manages to do both, all while attempting to adjust to the life as an immigrant in the US from the Dominican Republic, only as a young girl. In Julia Alvarez’s poetry, she portrays a common theme in her writing, focused on her entire experience as an immigrant, from isolation, and heartbreak, to gratitude and new opportunities. New York City, 1950, happens to be the birthplace of Julia Alvarez, but the Dominican Republic was where she lived as a child, when her family was forced to return back there shortly after her birth, due to her father’s poor actions. Julia Alvarez

The poem has a sad and empathetic mood to it, making the reader feel sorry for the speaker. The young girl receives minimal love from her parents, which she seeks more than anything. The only way the girl feels she can express this absent love is through her chore of ironing her family’s clothes. In the very final line of the poem Alvarez writes, “forced to express my excess love on cloth,” which is a very devastating way to end the poem, but showing true, raw emotion. When removing creases in the clothing, she hopes to remove the wounds in her damaged and unloving family. In a criticism by Abby Werlock, she feels that Alvarez explains the lack of love in her family the result of lack of

She portrays her love life to the audience by using sad and melancholy diction. She was married and divorced twice, when both times thinking the man she was with at the time, was her one true love. Sadly, she discovered her marriages were not meant to be and was disappointed in the reality of what she thought was love. Liliana Cruz has a similar view to the topic in saying, “… Alvarez’s point was that love does not end up being all it is cut out to be,” (Cruz). Alvarez clearly wrote this poem when she was in a state of brokenness on the inside from being hurt too many times. A very powerful quote from Alvarez’s poem, “Sometimes the bright chase of ad lovers in a meadow set sells us to belief again in that worn plot of love,” radiates feelings of defeat and hopelessness. Her choice of the words ‘worn plot’ tells that she has gone through this tiresome cycle too many times, always hurt by the eventual outcome. Alvarez spent much time alone before meeting her next lover, someone she didn’t know would change her life forever, “In 1989, Alvarez was married a third time, this time to Bill Eichner…” (Galbreath). This time she went into the relationship with a cautious heart and watchful feelings, expecting to be heartbroken once more, but the relationship turned out to be nothing she expected when she met Eichner (Galbreath). Alvarez, finally blissful, has been married to Eichner ever