To Walt Whitman

hey man, my brother

world-poet

prophet democrat

here’s a guitar

for you

-a chicana guitar-

so you can spill out a song

for the open road

big enough for my people

-my Native Amerindian race

that I can’t seem to find

in your poems

“…de Hoyos takes on the tasks of bearing witness, and denouncing the imperative social demands that are inescapable. In the poems she writes, she comes face to face with herself and the world that surrounds her. Arise, Chicano! is Angela’s first published collection of poems.” Read more about de Hoyos at the Women Artists and Writers of Color website.