Sandra Cisneros

I discovered this collection in high school, soon after it came out, and was enamored with it. The language, the style, the risque subjects, and the pure style of it...everything sucked me in, and the book was part of made me fall in love with poetry. Coming back to it as an adult, I think a lot of what I feel for the poems here is nostalgia-based, and many of the poems feel a little too easy or unfinished, but there are still poems which scream meaning from the page in the best way show more possible. Cisneros' images and clear, demanding voice hold the collection together in a way that works really well, and while I'd love to have more from some of the poems here--and part of me wonders if this collection could only have been published in the mid-90s--there are so many moments in this collection that make me smile. I enjoy the angst of it--moments I'd not want to live in, but which are well worth revisiting for the pure aliveness of them. show less

How did I miss this one, now over thirty years since publication? This is the perfect book to read with middle schoolers. It's a stroll through a poor and nurturing Mexican-American neighborhood in Chicago though the eyes of Esperanza, who sees so much but is still too young to understand all the ramifications of the treatment of women and girls, many of whom marry young to escape their jailer fathers and end up in the exact situation they tried to escape. The value of women and girls is show more tightly tied to physical attributes and macho enforcement of double standards, but Esperanza and her sister and friends, through their creativity and fearlessness, manage to create a gang of sisterhood and find some joy. It's both sad and inspirational. show less

Wanting to finish [b:A House of My Own: Stories from My Life|25614824|A House of My Own Stories from My Life|Sandra Cisneros|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1436979577l/25614824._SX50_.jpg|45028633] which has been on my currently reading list for a year and a half, I read all morning with pleasure. The delay was because it's a book to savor, each essay or talk dealing with a different topic but centered around writing, creativity, feminism and [a:Sandra show more Cisneros|13234|Sandra Cisneros|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1342038396p2/13234.jpg]'s seeking and finding "a room of one's own" be it in Chicago, San Antonio or Mexico. She entertains with stories of her parents, her six brothers, aunts and uncles, five dogs. She honors artists, musicians and writers. At some point in my own misspent life, I decided to collect only hardback books and got rid of many worthy paperbacks so now I reach for her treasured reading such as [b:The Time of the Doves|232937|The Time of the Doves|Mercè Rodoreda|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1388862060l/232937._SY75_.jpg|225621], [b:Canek|1734581|Canek|Ermilo Abreu Gómez|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1348121644l/1734581._SY75_.jpg|1732069] or [b:Days and Nights of Love and War|218181|Days and Nights of Love and War|Eduardo Galeano|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1386914579l/218181._SY75_.jpg|33077], these titles are not there and need to be bought again because oddly enough the library doesn't have them. Cisneros' reviews of these authors and visits to their homes or graves are inspiring and richly described as in [b:Camellia Street|232940|Camellia Street|Mercè Rodoreda|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1172956157l/232940._SY75_.jpg|422965] in Barcelona where "the buildings are boxlike and ugly; walls a nubby gray like a dirty wool sweater" and there are no camellias. The plaza is "bald as a knuckle" "air throbbing with children, motorbikes, goofy teenagers hitting and then hugging each other, schoolgirls on the brink of brilliant catastrophes." When describing her attraction to Rodoreda and her work, Cisneros says "I fumble about like one of Rodoreda's characters, as clumsy with words as a carpenter threading a needle."

Her teenage discovery of sex yields "new discoveries in its depths: And, like writing, for a slip of a moment it could be spiritual, the cosmos pivoting on a pin, could empty and fill you all at once like a Ganges, a Piazzolla tango, a tulip bending in the wind. I was nothing, and I was everything in the universe little and large--twig, cloud, sky. How had this incredible energy been denied me!"

She travels to Greece, Yugoslavia, Spain, Mexico, France, Italy and in everything she writes about her poetic skill awes me. Books by poets have a special place in my pantheon as do talks about reading and authors. show less

Trickster time arrived
while I slept.
It takes some getting used to.
I watch my transformation
bemused. Just as I once
watched myself alter into
my woman’s body. Watch
and marvel now as then.
Relieved to some degree.
Fascinated with where
I am and where I am
traveling.

Stepping On Skin from Woman Without Shame by Sandra Cisneros

Sandra Cisneros is famous for her novel A House on Mango Street. It’s been twenty-eight years since she published a book of poetry. The poems in Woman Without Shame are show more fierce, visceral, lyric, and even humorous. She reflects on her life from the vantage point of experience. It is gratifying to encounter poetry about a woman’s experience.

Canto for Woman of a Certain Age is hilarious, inspired by Dylan Thomas, raging against sensible white grannie underwear. She writes about Floaters, caused by the aging of the vitreous layer of the eye, and being told it’s harmless. (Perhaps, but I have so many it interferes with reading.) She wonders how Mrs. Gandhi reacted to her famous husband’s decision for celibacy.

As a Mexican American living in Mexico, she encounters the beauty of the ordinary and the horror of political and social evil. El Hombre begins with a girl’s death, “It’s her father’s debts./This is how they pay/Un Hombre who can’t pay.” Interspersed through the poem is the refrain,”Mandanos lux. Send us all light.” In To A–, she writes about narcos collecting protections from vendors and of the people who have disappeared. (My cousin married a Mexican and at retirement they moved to Mexico and built a beautiful hacienda. He was shot on the street.)

She recalls her youth. “We were all on the run in ’82,/Jumping to Laura Branigan’s “Gloria,”/The summer’s theme song.” She remembers lovers and sex.

In Woman Seeks Her Own Company, her self-portrait begins “Profession: Word Weaver,” and she concludes “Artistry: At sixty-five convinced/Just getting started.” I love the strength and affirmation of this insight.

At seventy, I understand Cisneros’ on so many levels. The changed body. (Oh, yes, in ’82 the men called out to me on the streets of Philadelphia.) The acceptance of the changes, not seeing aging as a declination, but a strength, understanding that one hones one’s art as a life long process.

Cisneros was a poet first, she writes in the Acknowledgements, and she has continued to write poetry. Woman Without Shame represents decades of unpublished work. These poems will be an inspiration to women, and hopefully inspire us all to be without shame.

Thanks to #AAKnopf for a free book. show less