19 pages • 38 minutes read
Martín EspadaOf the Threads that Connect the Stars
Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 2016A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Themes
The Speed of Change
The poem explores change over time. Individuals can experience it suddenly. These potential lightning strikes of inspiration, transformation, and affirmation can be glimpsed in pieces throughout the text. A table slap signals belonging in a community of men. A night in a bedroom shut away from a riot becomes lodged in a child’s memory and reemerges in a poem years later. Stars seen through a telescope spark intellectual curiosity. All these moments gain new significance when they are woven together in a line from past to present. They are “threads that connect the stars,” and they exist on a generational scale.
Frank Espada was a migrant, so Martín Espada is a son of a migrant and Klemente Espada is a grandson of a migrant. Their diaspora story traces the family’s evolving relationship with America and their changing identities. The speaker’s father fights for himself and for others. His stars are “the white flash in his head when a fist burst / between his eyes” (Lines 2-3), and he is out on the street “talk[ing] truce” during a riot while his son is hidden in relative safety. Though the speaker “never saw stars” he joins his father’s efforts to make the world a better place. The third generation is comfortable enough to reap more benefits. The grandson not only sees stars, he “names the galaxies with the numbers and letters of astronomy” (Line 10). His ability to do so rests on the work and struggle of two prior generations, but the work isn’t done.
“The earth rolls beneath our feet,” (Line 14), the speaker says. The spinning of the earth marks a day, and revolutions around the sun mark the years—and those of us on the ground don’t feel any of it. This is like the long arc of change the poem traces.
The key, it seems, is to not give up. Each person must push and live their lives. The speaker says, “We lurch ahead, and one day we have walked this far” (Line 14). Progress happens and will happen. Maybe we won’t see it, but future generations have a chance to. It’s a balance between hopeful and realistic—the ground and the stars.
Perception Shaped by Experience
“Of the Threads that Connect the Stars” illustrates ways in which perception is shaped by experience. The poem begins with a question of sight. “Did you ever see stars?” (Line 1). The answer for the first two men in the poem is “no.” Whatever “heavenly light” (Line 4) the stars represent, the father’s experience centers his perception in the physical, lived, and practical elements of life in Brooklyn. He is a fighter and a protector. The stars, for him, appear “when a fist burst / between his eyes” (Lines 2-3), but he “talked truce on the streets” (Line 8) during the “riots of 1966” (line 7). The work he does enables his son to achieve a different kind of perception.
The speaker benefits from his father’s struggles and activism. He is also shaped by the shared experience of systemic oppression. He “never saw stars” (Line 5) because the “sky in Brooklyn was a tide of smoke rolling over us / from the factory over the avenue, the mattresses burning in the junkyard” (lines 5-6). While his father negotiated on the street during the riot, the boy says he was “locked in my room like a suspect” (Line 8). The room is a sanctuary and a prison.
The speaker’s son has the access, space, and time to see the stars through a telescope. The speaker says, “I cannot see what he sees” (Line 11). Their experiences are so different it affects perception. “I understand a smoking mattress better than the language of galaxies” (Line 12). Each generation benefits from the work that has come before. Every step ahead opens possibility.
The Power of Language
Language in “Of the Threads that Connect the Stars” is powerful and transformative. It creates connections and expresses experience.
The first Espada generation speaks the language of those Brooklyn men who “slap / the table with glee” (Lines 3-4) at his joke about stars and figure “the only heavenly light we’d see” (Line 4) would be brought on by a punch to the head. It’s the language of the fight. That understanding can be channeled into the language of diplomacy. When the riot breaks out in 1966, he is there. “My father talked truce on the streets” (Line 8). This power speaks to courage, empathy, and the ability to reach different audiences. The speaker’s father's experience as a community member and activist is evident.
The second generation, represented by the speaker, understands the language of “the smoking mattress” (Line 12). He was raised in a Brooklyn where mattresses were burned for warmth or out of protest. The factory transforms the sky to a “tide of smoke rolling over us” (Line 5). He also speaks poetry. This is the “I” of the poem, the speaker and writer. He “never saw stars” (Line 5) of the physical kind his father had seen. The work of the previous generation has allowed the speaker to develop and use the language of art to tell his truth. He has the vision to see the bigger picture and trace the “threads that connect the stars.”
The poet’s son sees the stars “through the tall barrel of a telescope” (Line 9). It is another step away from violent conflict and toward opportunity. The third generation Espada has studied science and “names the galaxies with the number and letters of astronomy” (Line 10). He speaks “the language of galaxies” (Line 12). It’s something the prior generations may not understand or be able to see. It is part of the family’s progress and an individual achievement. It's the dream.
