Iguanas on the Tombstones: A Poet’s Metaphor for Colonialism

By Rich Tenorio | Edited by Patricia Guadalupe

Iguanas may seem like an unconventional subject for verse. Yet their ubiquitous presence caught the attention of Puerto Rican poet Martín Espada when he visited a historic cemetery in Old San Juan, the burial place of pro-independence voices from political leader Pedro Albizu Campos to poet and political activist José de Diego.

“It was quite a sight to witness these iguanas sunning themselves on a wall of that cemetery, or slithering from one tomb to the next, or squatting on the tomb of Albizu Campos, or staring up at the bust of José de Diego, with a total lack of comprehension, being iguanas,” Espada told palabra from his home in the western Massachusetts town of Shelburne Falls.

Espada, a National Book Award winner and an English prof