Unaccompanied
Last month I was trying to read a memoir called Solito by Javier Zamora. It’s about the author’s solo journey as a child from El Salvador to the United States, where both of his parents were living. There was so much that was so very compelling and so very discomfiting about Zamora’s book — but I just couldn’t finish it. Which I sort of feel terrible about because this is a real and important story, you know? People need these kinds of firsthand accounts of issues that might feel remote and foreign to them; it’s too easy to dismiss otherwise.
I opted instead to check out Zamora’s poetry collection, Unaccompanied, which was published before Solito. It covers the same story and timeline, but for me, the poetry — the ability to move in an untethered fashion, the freedom to exclaim and mourn simultaneously — provided more color and emotion and context than the straight-up retelling found in his memoir.
I’m taking it as a reminder that life is about the language — the inflections, the freedom of structure, the creative ways to share — and not just the linear plot.
originally published on instagram