The Great Whirl of Exile.

• Author: Jones, Tayari

The Great Whirl of Exile by Leroy V. Quintana Curbstone Press. 59 pages. $12.95.

Lueroy V. Quintana is one of the most under-read, "successful" writers publishing today. His volume of poetry Sangre (Prima Agua Press, 1981) won both the El Paso Border Regional Library Association Award and the American Book Award for poetry. Yet Quintana's writing suffers from invisibility today, as does the work of many Latino writers. In spite of this, he continues to produce riveting poems.

His latest book, The Great Whirl of Exile, is no exception. He takes his title from Pablo Neruda's poem "Fully Empowered," which begins, "It's well known that he who returns never left." Quintana makes it clear that he has never left his home, Albuquerque, New Mexico, the setting for many of the poems in this volume.

The Great Whirl of Exile is divided into three sections: "Legends of Home," "Dedications," and "Omen." However, the pieces defy easy classification and Categorization.

The African American poet Gwendolyn Brooks once wrote that "poetry is life distilled." Quintana has boiled and strained his memories into poems, most a few stanzas long, which speak of an experience on a particular day in the life of a particular man. Yet the concentration of his words and images has a much broader relevance.

Take "Mail Order":

I've received the dumbbells and the special exercise guide I sent away for, with only a passing worry about money. Shortly after that, a letter arrives, stating that at two p.m. next Wednesday, a lawyer, with the sheriff at his side, will be at my door. An eighth grader, I've never been so scared. This is worse, far worse than getting my ass kicked by the old pachucos. But my mother rescues me, had it figured out all along. A lesson that served me well, until my interest in Astronomy, which ended when she dragged me downtown to Kilroy's to cancel my beautiful Past Due telescope I thought I could afford on that great layaway plan. Without lapsing into polemics, Quintana comments on the American fixation with physical attractiveness, the lure of advertising, the threat of the police, and the constraints that finances can put on a child's curiosity. Not only does he accomplish this in three short stanzas, he does so in the plain-spoken style of the storyteller, and with humor.

Other selections are darker and more overtly political. This is particularly true as Quintana revisits the Vietnam...