Gentrification is in the now, it is a present tense issue that keeps on expanding. We, as the UC Merced community, are apart of gentrification. As this university was built over the indigenous peoples’ land, and is still expanding, this is a perfect example of gentrification. In ‘Triptych of the Adobe-Cotta Army‘, Antonio Lopez challenges the traditional borders of English poetry and the politics of gentrification by the use of imagery, tone, and the structure of the stanzas.
Just looking at the overall poem, Lopez creates a visual representation of the tall buildings used in gentrification. He does this by creating the building with the words of each stanza, by having different length of each stanza, how the patterns of each line either is smaller than the one before or bigger than the previous. Also, based on on long, how vertical it is, us as readers can see that Lopez does this to recreate the buildings of gentrification.
Imagery and tone of the poem is a key part for Lopez to convey his overall message of the poem. Lopez creates a mixture personification, imagery and simile (lines 8-10) to show that the new Amazon building built is quite honestly mocking him, as it is raised much higher than him. He personifies the logo where it does have the shape of a mouth smiling. By being from around the East Palo Alto area, Lopez creates the gentrification of this area spot on, where all he is saying is true! The use of a sadden and angry tone is seen throughout the poem. The words “And Marias now mourn Jesus” (line 42-43) “We miss you”(line 48) all pertain to how one who is living in gentrification is feeling. The tones of these words show how it’s like mourning Jesus, the signs that were created saying “We miss you”.
Antonio Lopez, as a Poetician, crosses the traditional borders of English poetry. He creates a wide range of visual representation of gentrification such as the whole poem of words is structured to be formatted as a building! The use of imagery of tone to convey how the community felt and saw during the process of gentrification. Now that is the Adobe-Cotta Army that took over East Palo Alto.
Roma Ventura
Introduction to Poetry 
Oct 28, 2021 @ 19:42:15
I love how you analyzed how the poem itself mimicked the tall building and the how the logo adds to the feelings he has towards this company and helps create the anger in the tone. The only thing to add would be a little more on the impact of the shape of the poem and how it creates tall buildings has on the poem. Overall great analysis.
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Oct 29, 2021 @ 08:06:00
I loved how your blog had this sense of power and dominating voice while trying to get your point and message across. Not only did you provide evidence and backed it up with valid reasonings, but you did really well with connecting your points to the overall message and your strong stance. Everything flowed very well and one thing I would have loved more of is if you continued on with your evidence from the poem, but overall I think you did great! Keep it up!
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Oct 29, 2021 @ 23:10:38
I like how you brought up the amazon logo in your blog post which stood out the most to me. I also like how you listed the different types of figurative language used. The only suggestion I would make is to be more clear on what the actual message of the poem is trying to convey. Besides, that I really enjoyed reading your blog post.
-Katherine Deras
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