She took up teaching to support herself and found great success. Alvarez had a slow and tough beginning when becoming a poet and a writer. Many of her poems are based on her experience of transitioning into her new life in America and not fitting in. that she found her love for literature and writing. It was not until Alvarez lived in the U.S. Later in life Alvarez wrote a book about these sisters and their effort to overthrow the Dictator of the Dominican Republic which she titled In the Time of the Butterflies. The Alvarez family fled only four months before the leaders of the rebellion, the Mirabal sisters, were murdered. For 10 years Alvarez grew up there until her family had to flee to the United States from the dictator. Alvarez’s father was a part of an underground rebellion against the dictator of the Dominican Republic. She grew up in a lavish life style when living in the Dominican Republic on her family’s compound. Alvarez’s mother was a house wife and her father was a doctor. Just three months after her birth her family moved back to their native country, the Dominican Republic. Julia Alvarez was born in New York City on March 27, 1950.
This syntax like others often pulls the reader’s attention to an important section of the poem. It shows there is importance to each object. “The” also shows when she has moved onto the next object. Alvarez uses “the” to list off all the materials and tools. “The” is the syntax of these lines from “New Clothes” by Julia Alvarez. “The fabric rounding and flattening as it neared the flatbed, / the bulb dotting the cloth with a spot light, / the needle glinting, / the needle racing through gingham, poplin, seersucker, cambric, / the pedal pressed heavily down with the weight of one woman,“ (New Clothes, 16-20) You can almost see the love and hard work this mother has put into making this clothing. But now I can picture the puffy sleeves and lace binding. With the help of google I understood what puckered sleeves and tucked yokes were, as I am not up on clothing lingo. Here the poet is letting us see her the project her mother was working on. This example from “New Clothes” shows sensory image. “She smiled: puckered sleeves, tucked yokes, lace binding on every seam” (New Clothes, 6) “Everyone seemed more American/than we, newly arrived,/foreign dirt still on out soles.” (Queens, 1-3) After reading about the sisters and their movement I knew what Alvarez was running from when her family fled back to the United states. I could understand more of her background and where all these poems where coming from. I have read The time of the Butterflies by Julia Alvarez which allowed me to understand her poems to a fuller extent.
“But I refused with every mark/to be like her, anonymous.” (Dusting, 17-18) Alvarez wanted to be a different poet and not be like the rest. Alvarez states that in school she was taught literature about ships and war and thought why can’t it be from the voice of a mother talking about fabrics. They aren’t a made-up story, it is a true story or one very similar that is easy to connect with, not because the same thing is happening in your life but because it is real. In Alvarez’s reflection on writing “Dusting” she states “finally, I took the leap and began to write poems in my own voice and the voices of the women in my past,” her poems are based on her life and on the lives of people she knew. Alvarez’s poems are different to many that I have read, she writes from her own perspective and many who are like her. She represents our country of immigrants but also people every day who feel they do not fit in and try to in a new situation. This poet, Julia Alvarez, stands for so many people in the United States and other countries.
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