U.S. & Canadian Poetry - General & Miscellaneous - Literary Criticism, U.S. & Canadian Poetry - 20th Century - Literary Criticism
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Overview
In this first book-length study of the works of Chicano women writers, Marta Ester Sanchez introduces the reader to a group of Chicanas who in the 1970s began to reexamine and reevaluate their gender and cultural identity through poetic language. The term 'Chicana' refers here to women of Mexican heritage who live and write in the United States. The works of four contemporary Chicana poets---Alma Villanueva, Lorna Dee Cervantes, Lucha Corpi, and Bernice Zamora---are the focus of this volume.Editorials
Library Journal
This is the first in-depth analysis of four emerging Chicana poets: Alma Villan ueva, Lorna Dee Cervantes, Lucha Corpi, and Bernice Zamora. Focusing on key poems, Sanchez traces conflicts arising from cultural and sexual identi ty, as well as from the role of poet. In Villanueva's ``(wo)man,'' we hear the familiar cry of contemporary Anglo women poets: ``I celebrate our bod ies . . . '' but the life force is traced to a ``motherafrica.'' Cervantes's ``Be neath the Shadow of the Freeway'' is rooted in poverty and brutality``in the night I would hear it/ glass bottles shattering the street . . . .'' Transcen dence comes through identification with the memory of her Mexican grand mother. The text contains an excellent history of Chicano writing in general, and its relationship to economics and politics. For subject collections. Joyce Nower, Academic Skills Ctr., San Diego State Univ.Book Details
Published
July 1, 1992
Publisher
Berkeley : University of California Press, c1985.
Pages
377
Format
Hardcover
ISBN
9780520052628