Luis Urrea reads poetry:

http://billmoyers.com/2012/05/04/moyers-moment-2012-luis-alberto-urrea-reads-from-ghost-sickness/

About magic realism:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magic_realism

Characteristics in literature:

Literature

Characteristics

The extent to which the characteristics below apply to a given magic realist text varies. Every text is different and employs a smattering of the qualities listed here. However, they accurately portray what one might expect from a magic realist text.

Fantastical elements

As recently as 2008, magical realism in literature has been defined as "...a kind of modern fiction in which fabulous and fantastical events are included in a narrative that otherwise maintains the 'reliable' tone of objective realistic report, designating a tendency of the modern novel to reach beyond the confines of realism and draw upon the energies of fable, folk tale, and myth while maintaining a strong contemporary social relevance. The fantastic attributes given to characters in such novels—levitation, flight, telepathy, telekinesis—are among the means that magic realism adopts in order to encompass the often phantasmagorical political realities of the 20th century."^[14]

Plenitude

In an essay entitled "The Baroque and the Marvelous Real" the Cuban writer Alejo Carpentier championed the idea that the baroque is defined by a lack of emptiness, a departure from structure or rules, and an "extraordinary" plenitude of disorienting detail (citing Mondrian as its polar opposite). From this angle, Carpentier views the baroque as a layering of elements, which translates easily into the post-colonial or transcultural Latin American atmosphere that Carpentier emphasizes in The Kingdom of this World.^[15] "America, a continent of symbiosis, mutations... mestizaje, engenders the baroque,"^[16] made explicit by elaborate Aztec temples and associative Nahuatl poetry. These mixing ethnicities grow together with the American baroque; the space in between is where the "marvelous real" is seen. Marvelous: not meaning beautiful and pleasant, but extraordinary, strange, excellent. Such a complex system of layering—encompassed in the Latin American "boom" novel, such as One Hundred Years of Solitude—has as its aim "...translating the scope of America."^[17]

Hybridity

Magical realism plot lines characteristically employ hybrid multiple planes of reality that take place in "...inharmonious arenas of such opposites as urban and rural, and Western and indigenous."^[18][19] For example, as seen in Julio Cortázar's "La noche boca arriba," an individual experiences two realistic situations simultaneously in the same place but during two different time periods, centuries apart.^[20]
His dreamlike state connects these two realities; this small bit of magic makes these multiple planes of reality possible.^[21] Overall, they establish "...a more deep and true reality than conventional realist techniques would illustrate."^[18][22]

Metafiction

This trait centers on the reader's role in literature. With its multiple realities and specific reference to the reader’s world, it explores the impact fiction has on reality, reality on fiction and the reader’s role in between; as such, it is well suited for drawing attention to social or political criticism. Furthermore, it is the tool paramount in the execution of a related and major magic realist phenomenon: textualization. This term defines two conditions—first, where a fictitious reader enters the story within a story while reading it, making us self-conscious of our status as readers—and secondly, where the textual world enters into the reader's (our) world. Good sense would negate this process but ‘magic’ is the flexible topos that allows it.^[23]

Authorial reticence

Authorial reticence is the "...deliberate withholding of information and explanations about the disconcerting fictitious world."^[24] The narrator does not provide explanations about the accuracy or credibility of events described or views expressed by characters in the text. Further, the narrator is indifferent, a characteristic enhanced by this absence of explanation of fantastic events; the story proceeds with "logical precision" as if nothing extraordinary took place.^[25][26]
In this, explaining the supernatural world would immediately reduce its legitimacy relative to the natural world. The reader would consequently disregard the supernatural as false testimony.

Sense of mystery

Something that most critics agree on is this major theme. Magic realist literature tends to read at an intensified level. Taking the seminal work of the style, One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez, the reader must let go of preexisting ties to conventional exposition, plot advancement, linear time structure, scientific reason, etc., to strive for a state of heightened awareness of life's connectedness or hidden meanings. Carpentier articulates this feeling as "...to seize the mystery that breathes behind things,"^[27] and supports the claim by saying a writer must heighten his senses to the point of "estado limite" [translated as "limit state" or "extreme"^[28]] in order to realize all levels of reality, most importantly that of mystery.^[29]

Collective consciousness

The Mexican critic Luis Leal has said, "Without thinking of the concept of magical realism, each writer gives expression to a reality he observes in the people. To me, magical realism is an attitude on the part of the characters in the novel toward the world," or toward nature. He adds, "If you can explain it, then it's not magical realism."^[30]

Political critique

Magic realism contains an "...implicit criticism of society, particularly the elite."^[31] Especially with regard to Latin America, the style breaks from the inarguable discourse of "...privileged centers of literature."^[32] This is a mode primarily about and for "ex-centrics": the geographically, socially and economically marginalized. Therefore, magic realism's ‘alternative world’ works to correct the reality of established viewpoints (like realism, naturalism, modernism). Magic realist texts, under this logic, are subversive texts, revolutionary against socially dominant forces. Alternatively, the socially dominant may implement magical realism to disassociate themselves from their "power discourse."^[33] Theo D’haen calls this change in perspective "decentering."