Leaving Seville is based on the two years when William Heath was a Fulbright Professor at the University of Seville and the time he spent in Catalonia with his wife Roser, a native of Barcelona. Rather than the cursory glances of a tourist, Heath’s poems display an insider’s knowledge. His accounts of a failed coup, a tear-gassed demonstration, festive life on the streets, bullrings, and cafes of Seville as well as Andalusian pueblos, feature lively idioms, vivid images, compelling stories, and a mastery of the poetic line.
Although the author may have left Seville, these memorable poems will take you there.
Praise for Leaving Seville
William Heath’s distinguished writing career includes scholarly books plus crime and historical novels. With his two new chapbooks Heath shows us what he can do as a poet, from sunlit imagery to heartfelt lament. The reader would expect mastery of setting in a volume titled Leaving Seville. But Heath’s lines contain an emotional resonance that takes them beyond simple poetry of place:
This is called
falling in love [ . . .]
a shared place
in the summer
a quaint pueblo,
flowered balconies,
whitewashed walls,
nearby mountains,
and an easy
walk to the sea.
A narrow imagistic focus delivers poignant meditations on the human drama unfolding around him. In a family restaurant he observes the operatic shouting of a father and son—followed by the delicious details of a Mediterranean meal. Tucked into these poems is a vision of how the world shimmers into language, for example when he describes how he lives “on a street named/consolation/near the corner/where water meets life.”
The deft imagery of Leaving Seville lingers in our minds. . . Heath is a poet for those of us who have grown tired of the showy, poetic language and self-centered perspectives so familiar today. He is more modest, more self-deprecating, a poet whose insights give us a refreshing hint at a worldly, intelligent persona.
— David Salner
Salner’s latest collection is The Stillness of Certain Valleys (Broadstone Books, 2019). His poetry has appeared in many journals including Threepenny Review, Iowa Review, Prairie Schooner, Beloit Poetry Journal, and other magazines.
Poems from Leaving Seville
Barrio de Santa Cruz
In Spain the rain falls mainly
in the mountains and the pain
is on display in the streets.
Like any Ohio boy, the first time
a gypsy held out her hand
I shook it. Watch your wallet,
I learned. Never look a beggar
In the eye. The mother gives
her child a cardboard sign,
soy una pobre niña, shows her
how to expose one bare foot
beneath a shawl full of holes,
slaps her to make her cry.
The child is quick to sort
the tossed coins, gathering
the larger ones out of sight
then resuming the lost look
her mother taught her
works best, but today she is
shivering in the cold,
a more effective look
her skin will not forget
nor her freezing bones
when she is a woman grown,
teaching her poor daughter
how to beg in the street.
Our Lady of Flamenco
I hear talk about flamenco—
how the woman knows when
to lift her skirt, how to let
her hands come alive in the air,
fingers spiraling and snapping,
uplifted arms swaying slowly—
a woman maybe in her forties,
full breasted, wide-hipped,
dancing with two men half her age
and filling them with a foot-
stamping desire everyone
in the audience can feel,
while the hands smack out
an intricate rhythm—clapping
faster and louder than any
music mere hands could make,
yet did, filling the whole room
with it—until all were drawn
to their feet to be dancers, too,
fingers snapping, feet beating
on the floor an insistent lust
for life itself. All this one woman,
with swirling skirts, sure steps,
and head held as high as pride
and passion would allow, all this
one woman accomplished by
mastering the voluptuous
movements of her turning,
unfurling, duende dance.