Brian Doyle is a author who is known for his essays, editing the Portland Magazine, and writing nonfiction novels among other things. One of the writings that he is most know for is a prose poem titled “Joyas Valadoras” in which he provides vivid descriptions of different animals and there hearts. Doyle uses these descriptions not only to talk about the physical uses of these hearts, but also the emotional ones. After taking a look into Brian Doyle’s life outside of writing, we can see that there is a personal reason that he has for being fascinated with the hearts of animals. This is important because knowing this information makes it easier for the reader to understand the overall meaning of the work which is the fact that it takes two hearts to get through life, a physical one, and a figurative one.

In the beginning of the poem, the speaker talks about hummingbirds, and how their heart “beats ten times a second” and “is the size of a pencil eraser.”(Doyle 94) The speaker also points out how these birds were called “Joyas Valadoras” or flying jewels by the first white explorers in America because of the beautiful multitude of colors that they have across their three hundred species. The speaker also points out how hummingbirds are able to “fly five hundred miles without pausing to rest.”(Doyle 95) These facts, even though there are no exclamation points at the end of  them, the rhythm of the poem, which is set with many commas and short simple sentences indicate Doyle’s enthusiasm about them. This rhythm also mimics the rhythm of a heart that is beating fast because of excitement, which is an example of how the feelings of a figurative heart can effect the movement of a physical heart.

After the first two paragraphs of this prose poem, people may start to think that there is no point to this other than just being a general description of the good things about being a hummingbird, but in the next paragraph, the mood changes from enthusiastic, to realistic. In the third paragraph, the speaker points out that all of this constant flight takes a toll on the hummingbirds hearts which causes them to “suffer more heart attacks and aneurysms and ruptures than any other living creature.”(Doyle 95). In this sentence Doyle uses polysyndeton to add emphasis to the severity of the types of internal injuries suffered by these birds. Doyle uses this to point out the fact that although hummingbirds are small animals, not only do their physical hearts have to do a lot of work to keep them alive, but their figurative hearts also do a lot of work to keep them from giving up in life. At the end of the third paragraph, the speaker takes the attention off of hummingbirds and puts it on living creatures in general when he states that every animal has about two billion heartbeats in their lifetime. Then the speaker gives the reader a dilemma on how to live their life when he says that “you can spend [your heartbeats] slowly, like a tortoise and live to be two hundred years old, or you can spend them fast, like a hummingbird and live to be two years old.”(Doyle 95). 

In the next paragraph Doyle changes the subject from the hummingbird with a heart the size of an eraser, to a whale with a hear the size of a house. Earlier in the poem, the speaker mentions that a hummingbird’s heart is “the size of an infant’s fingernail.”(Doyle 95), and in the fourth paragraph, the speaker mentions that a child could “walk around” a whales heart. Some people may think nothing of the fact that Doyle chooses to use a child as an example in these different situations while talking about these hearts, but there is a deeper meaning behind these uses. Doyle uses a child as a reference in these situations, because his son was born with only three chambers in his heart instead of four. This not only explains why Doyle uses a child as an example in these different instances, but it also explains why this poem is centered around hearts in the first place. This also explains to the reader why the poem has an emotional undertone due to its rhythm, which shows how Doyle’s figurative heart was affected by the pain of his son’s physical one.

“Joyas Valadoras” is a emotionally charged prose poem about the hearts of animals, and how they work hard both physically, and emotionally. In this poem, Doyle mostly talks about hummingbirds, and how even though they are small, they work harder and suffer more consequences for their work than any other creature on earth. He uses polysyndeton along with short sentences in succession to create a mood of enthusiasm for the reader. He also uses similes that incorporate a child as an example, which reveals his personal connection to the topic of hearts since his son was born with a heart defect. Doyle uses all of these points to ultimately prove that it takes both a tough physical heart, as well a strong figurative one to make it through life. 