Enchanted Air: Two Cultures, Two Wings

Verse memoirs are a genre of full-length autobiographical narratives that are told through poetry instead of prose. Verse memoirs make use of the poetic form to tell stories that highlight mood, symbolism, and atmosphere through a tight control of language and literary device. Young Adult verse novels often structure the narrative in short sections with different narrators, providing multiple perspectives with insight into the thoughts and feelings of diverse characters. In verse memoirs, the perspective usually remains tied to the autobiographical narrator. Engle uses organizational techniques such as evolving symbolism to highlight the changes in perspective that take place over the course of the narrative. An increasingly popular genre for memoirs by women of color, recent verse memoirs include Brown Girl Dreaming by Jacqueline Woodson, Inside Out & Back Again by Thanhhá Lai, and Under the Mesquite by Guadalupe Garcia McCall.

Margarita Engle is an award-winning author best known for her poetry for children. Born in Los Angeles, California, the author spent summers in Cuba with her mother’s extended family where she developed a deep love of and appreciation for Cuba as well as Spanish poetry.