What is Place?

 Najarro’s poetry is very nostalgic. I think the inspiration of place sweeps the reader away and into a3D sometimes 4D experience.  Childhoods are illuminated by small kitchens, and smells trace lineage all the way backwards and forwards through time. Place and narrative do something to poetry, it gives it purpose and a destination that belongs to the universal memory. We all walk down similar paths when remembering things, stages in our lives however, Najarro has an exceptional talent at making these memories tangible for a stranger/reader.

Place reminds me of what I didn’t have access to, where I was restricted to go. Only a block from the house, not out of eyesight, not in that neighborhood, not that store.

As much as it describes where I’ve been, what has affected me, changed me, grown on me.

Places

Hayward,Ca

Manon Ave  

South Side

Tennyson

Cecil Burgers

The corner Ruth Thompson was shot on

The corner my friends and I met at every morning until I had no more friends to meet up with

The church

The youth pastors house

A safe haven in between school and home

Youth group

The velvet red carpet I cried so many tears on

My knees imprinted on the alter

My spot in the choir

The water tank I held my breath in

My first job and the smell of gasoline

I still can’t wash away

The bathroom that I found out about lexi in

The motorcycle ride to the hospital to make sure lexi was real

The place her dad and I stayed in when we brought her home

The moving van before she was one when her and I moved out

the way places never stay the same

But always do

Llesenia