Book reviewed: Woman Without Shame: Poems by Sandra Cisneros

A celebration of the self (five stars) This is a collection of poems that reflect Sandra Cisneros mind and heart; a mood-strewn collection of poetry that focuses on family, culture, and her thoughts. She explores themes of identity, gender, race, class, and the challenges of Hispanic women in an American society. Her poetry has emotional resonance that has significant impact on contemporary American literature. Two poems had a personal appeal for me. In Case of Emergency Contact nearest cloud. Begin by calling Milky Way. Summon: pepper tree, maguey, donkey shit, jacaranda shower, river, caliche, scorpion, hummingbird, or pearl. Will vouch we are kin. Instructions for My Funeral For good measure, smoke me with copal. Shroud me in my raggedy rebozo. No jewelry. Give to friends. No coffin. Instead, petate. Ignite to ''Disco Inferno." Allow no Christian rituals for this bitch, but, if you like, you may invite a homeless dog to sing, or a witch woman to spit orange water and chant an Otomi prayer. …….. Smoke a Havana. Music, Fellini-esque. Above all, laugh. I could not help but remember the following poem by Tony DeLorger: As the pendulum swings incessantly, and life comes and goes, the cosmos expands and grows, and we meld together with our past and future, souls of abundance shared and old. I find Cisneros’s metaphysical thoughts in these poems. As a poet, she reflects on our existence, life in cosmos, and how it could be related to each other. Physicists, biologists, and philosophers have their own language to mesmerize the beauty of existence. Cisneros is bold in admitting that a man-made religion cannot dictate terms of life to her. Many scholars have argued that her Catholic upbringing had impacted her writings, and this could be true in her earlier writings. But these poems were written later in her life as she ponders on life in a much more profound manner.