Sarah Jett Rayburn, Ph.D. Candidate "Everyone wants to know the whole truth but no one possesses it."

1. The style in which Urrea transcribes Landa's testimony is poetic in that the thoughts are completly separated yet linked to the next. It tells a narrative, and the brevity of the thoughts intensifies the story itself. If Landa were to talk about the event in simple conversation or go through the event in exact chronology, it would be just like any other account. He would sound the same as any other immigrant that has been saved from the desert and required to defend himself in court. The poetic format that stays consisten throughout the entire testimony is a metaphor for the state of mind of which Landa is describing. He mixes physical pain, mental suffering and hallucinations with narration of his actions and of the others he was observing. The information he is asked for is recieved in a manner that affects his audience more profoundly, thus giving a more beleivable testimony.

2. Urrea's interpretation of Landa's testimony as a poem could have possibly been simply the way he perceived it himself. Another writer with the same recorded testimony could have possibly written it in another format, style or chosen certain peices to include or exerpt according to the message he/she wishes to imply from the same factual information.