Loose Woman: Poems
A candid, sexy and wonderfully mood-strewn collection of poetry that celebrates the female aspects of love, from the reflective to the overtly erotic. "Poignant, sexy. . . lyrical, passionate. . . cool and delicate. . . hot as a chili pepper."—Boston Globe.
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A candid, sexy and wonderfully mood-strewn collection of poetry that celebrates the female aspects of love, from the reflective to the overtly erotic. "Poignant, sexy. . . lyrical, passionate. . . cool and delicate. . . hot as a chili pepper."—Boston Globe.Publishers WeeklyThe three parts of this spirited collection address the heart, ``spangled again and lopsided.'' In her second book of poems, Cisneros ( My Wicked Wicked Ways ) presents a street-smart, fearlessly liberated persona who raves, sometimes haphazardly, always with abandon, about the real thing: ``I am . . . / The lust goddess without guilt. / The delicious debauchery. You bring out / the primordial exquisiteness in me.'' As if breaking all the rules (``Because someone once / said Don't / do that! / you like to do it''), she delves with urgency into things carnal--sequins, cigars, black lace bras and menstrual blood. Readers of Cisneros's coming-of-age novel The House on Mango Street (which Knopf is reissuing in hardcover) will recognize the almost mythic undertow of her voice; it never weakens. We meet again a powerful, fiercely independent woman of Mexican heritage, though this time innocence has long been lost. For her the worlds of language and life are one and the same: ``Lorenzo, I forget what's real. / I mix up the details of what happened / with what I witnessed inside my / universe.'' These poems--short-lined, chantlike, biting--insistently rework the same themes to tap them. In the end, however, despite the accessible boldness of the writing, the poems lack the depth, the complexity and the lyrical magic of the author's fiction. QPB alternate; first serial to the New Yorker. (May)
AcknowledgmentsLittle Clown, My Heart3You Bring Out the Mexican in Me4Original Sin7Old Maids9I Let Him Take Me11Extreme Unction12A Few Items to Consider14I Am So in Love I Grow a New Hymen16Your Name Is Mine18Something Like Rivers Ran19You My Saltwater Pearl21You Like to Give and Watch Me My Pleasure23Christ You Delight Me25En Route to My Lover I Am Detained by Too Many Cities and Human Frailty26Dulzura27You Called Me Corazon28Love Poem for a Non-Believer29The Heart Rounds Up the Usual Suspects33Waiting for a Lover34Well, If You Insist36Pumpkin Eater37I Am So Depressed I Feel Like Jumping in the River Behind My House but Won't Because I'm Thirty-Eight and Not Eighteen39Bay Poem from Berkeley40After Everything41I Want to Be a Father Like the Men43El Alacran Guero45Thing in My Shoe47Night Madness Poem49I Don't Like Being in Love51Amorcito Corazon52A Little Grief Like Gouache53Full Moon and You're Not Here54My Friend Turns Beautiful Before My Eyes56Perras58Unos Cuantos Piquetitos59With Lorenzo at the Center of the Universe, el Zocalo, Mexico City60I Awake in the Middle of the Night and Wonder If You've Been Taken64Small Madness65Heart, My Lovely Hobo69I Am on My Way to Oklahoma to Bury the Man I Nearly Left My Husband For70Cloud72Tu Que Sabes de Amor73Once Again I Prove the Theory of Relativity74Fan of a Floating Woman76That Beautiful Boy Who Lives Across from the Handy Andy77Black Lace Bra Kind of Woman78Down There79Los Desnudos: A Triptych86Mexicans in France91My Nemesis Arrives After a Long Hiatus93A Man in My Bed Like Cracker Crumbs96Bienvenido Poem for Sophie97Arturito the Amazing Baby Olmec Who Is Mine by Way of Water98Jumping off Roofs100Why I Didn't102Las Girlfriends105Champagne Poem for La Josie107Still Life with Potatoes, Pearls, Raw Meat, Rhinestones, Lard, and Horse Hooves108Vino Tinto111Loose Woman112
\ Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly\ The three parts of this spirited collection address the heart, ``spangled again and lopsided.'' In her second book of poems, Cisneros ( My Wicked Wicked Ways ) presents a street-smart, fearlessly liberated persona who raves, sometimes haphazardly, always with abandon, about the real thing: ``I am . . . / The lust goddess without guilt. / The delicious debauchery. You bring out / the primordial exquisiteness in me.'' As if breaking all the rules (``Because someone once / said Don't / do that! / you like to do it''), she delves with urgency into things carnal--sequins, cigars, black lace bras and menstrual blood. Readers of Cisneros's coming-of-age novel The House on Mango Street (which Knopf is reissuing in hardcover) will recognize the almost mythic undertow of her voice; it never weakens. We meet again a powerful, fiercely independent woman of Mexican heritage, though this time innocence has long been lost. For her the worlds of language and life are one and the same: ``Lorenzo, I forget what's real. / I mix up the details of what happened / with what I witnessed inside my / universe.'' These poems--short-lined, chantlike, biting--insistently rework the same themes to tap them. In the end, however, despite the accessible boldness of the writing, the poems lack the depth, the complexity and the lyrical magic of the author's fiction. QPB alternate; first serial to the New Yorker. (May)\ \ \ \ \ Library Journal``You bring out the Mexican in me./The hunkered thick dark spiral./The core of a heart howl./The bitter bile./The tequila lgrimas on Saturday all/through next weekend Sunday.'' In this typically direct, sensual, and bitingly colloquial poem, Cisneros is addressing a lover, but she might as well be addressing the act of writing itself, which clearly brings out the best in her, along with the passion she associates with her Mexican roots. As in Woman Hollering Creek and Other Stories (LJ 4/1/91), one of LJ's Best Books of 1991, Cisneros deftly explores the consequences of being Hispanic and a woman-in particular, being the tough, independent free-spirited ``loose woman'' of her title. The poems that result are brilliant and shimmering and sharp-tongued and just occasionally a little too similar. Highly recommended where good poetry is read and essential for all Hispanic collections.-Barbara Hoffert, ``Library Journal''\ \
