The Surrender Tree: Poems of Cuba's Struggle for Freedom

Engle, M. (2008). The surrender tree: Poems of Cuba's struggle for freedom. New York: Henry Holt and Company.

Freedom is something that she has yet to be given in the three wars that Cuba faced in the late 1800’s. Rosa is a nurse who hides in the forest of Cuba and heals the wounds of the people, both local and opposing slave hunters and soldiers. She even heals the one soldier who is out to find, kill and claim the bounty for her. Through the poetic verses, Rosa cures who she can and fights the battle of illness from one patient to the next hoping for the better in the end. 

Margarita Engle tells the story of a slave, Rosa, who lives to help and heal the sick. As a Cuban American poet, Engle gives the reader several point of views from being the slave and helping defeat the war, to the opposing side of those initiating the war, to one who a escapes Cuba with a hope of paradise in the future. The short stanzas are easy to read and can be discussed individually and the reader can vividly imagine each character and the forest of Cuba. Engle does a fantastic job providing such imagery and simplicity in text for young readers through the free verse poems.

I enjoyed this book of poems. The simplistic reading made it flow from one character to another and one event to another. I wan able to focus on what Rosa was doing and see points of views of those who cared for her and what they did for her. I also saw what hatred and greed did to others, such as Lieutenant Death. These poems would be a great way to present the wars in Cuba and conduct research on what caused those wars and provide insight of both sides of the war. The book provides a chronological timeline of events that students can use to assist them in their reading of the free verse poems.

Reviews

School Library Journal

Grade 9 Up—Often, popular knowledge of Cuba begins and ends with late-20th-century textbook fare: the Cuban Revolution, the Cuban Missile Crisis, and Fidel Castro. The Surrender Tree, however, transports readers to another, though no less tumultuous, era. Spanning the years 1850–1899, Engle's poems construct a narrative woven around the nation's Wars for Independence. The poems are told in alternating voices, though predominantly by Rosa, a "freed" slave and natural healer destined to a life on the lam in the island' s wild interior. Other narrators include Teniente Muerte, or Lieutenant Death, the son of a slave hunter turned ruthless soldier; José, Rosa's husband and partner in healing; and Silvia, an escapee from one of Cuba's reconcentration camps. The Surrender Tree is hauntingly beautiful, revealing pieces of Cuba's troubled past through the poetry of hidden moments such as the glimpse of a woman shuttling children through a cave roof for Rosa's care or the snapshot of runaway Chinese slaves catching a crocodile to eat. Though the narrative feels somewhat repetitive in its first third, one comes to realize it is merely symbolic of the unending cycle of war and the necessity for Rosa and other freed slaves to flee domesticity each time a new conflict begins. Aside from its considerable stand-alone merit, this book, when paired with Engle's The Poet Slave of Cuba: A Biography of Juan Francisco Manzano (Holt, 2006), delivers endless possibilities for discussion about poetry, colonialism, slavery, and American foreign policy.—Jill Heritage Maza, Greenwich High School, CT

Booklist

*Starred Review* As in The Poet Slave of Cuba (2006), Engle’s new book is written in clear, short lines of stirring free verse. This time she draws on her own Cuban American roots, including stories from her grandmother, to describe those who fought in the nineteenth-century Cuban struggle for independence. At the center is Rosa, a traditional healer, who nurses runaway slaves and deserters in caves and other secret hideaways. Her husband, José, a freed slave, also speaks, and so does a refugee child, whom Rosa teaches to be a healer. Then there is the vicious slave hunter known as Lieutenant Death; his collection of ears is an unforgettable image of brutality (“shown as proof that the runaway slave / died fighting, resisting capture”). The switching perspectives personalize the dramatic political history, including the establishment of the world’s first “reconcentration camps” to hold prisoners, as well as the role of slave owners who freed their slaves and joined the resistance against Spain. Many readers will be caught by the compelling narrative voices and want to pursue the historical accounts in Engle’s bibliography. Grades 6-12. --Hazel Rochman