I Ask the Impossible: Poems

I have been teaching Chicana and Latina Literature for nearly twenty years. No one dunks that ball each and each time with my students as this prolific, immensely intelligent, politically committed and talented writer. Whether it is a tale about the Southwest, expounding on the specificity of being a brown woman in the U.S. or teaching us how to love ourselves as a people, she does it all with the ease of the master craftsperson that she has become. My favorite poems in this collection were: 1. Without question the most poignant love poem I've read in a long time, "I Ask the Impossible, 2. A poem for her son, which shows her trademark sense of humor, "El Chicle,"; and the eerily prophetic, "While I Was Gone a War Began," (in this one she foresaw the plane hijackings by Bin Laden 4 years before they happened!) among several others. I look forward to sharing her next collection with my future students.

I cannot name one U.S. Latina who excels in every genre and so consistently as this poet. Regarding her free form verse, coming out of the struggle of El Movimiento in the 70s, la hermana is still kicking you know what. Her poem dedicated to the nun, Sister Dianna Ortiz, tortured in Guatemala in the late 80s, is one powerhouse of a testimony to Castillo's relentless commitment to social justice using the blessing God gave her with the pen. Whether she is reflecting on her child, the struggles of women of color everywhere, reprimanding the Pope, in love, she stands for life and struggle with dignity. Orale, Ana! (P.S. As for the cover, it was fabulous to finally put a beautiful face to the outstanding poetry.)

Ana Castillo is the type of writer one expects to find in Latin America: a prolific intellectual who seamlessly integrates the personal and the political in her work. In this sense, her poetry reminds me of the work of the Salvadoran Roque Dalton or the Uruguayan Mario Benedetti, writers who became the conscience of their respective countries and communities. In the poem 'Since the Creation of My Son and My First Book' Ana writes on the birth of her son and the writing of her first book--an analogy that in lesser hands would be a cliche--and gives us a poem of raw energy and political significance; for readers who idealized the life of the poet, here's the proof: it's a most difficult career choice. The title poem is poignant and beautiful: 'I ask the impossible: love me forever.' Ana wrote that poem shortly after the death of her own father, and 'I Ask the Impossible' is therefore one of the most moving testimonies of love I have ever read, about what love really means. This is a varied collection of poetry, and although Ana has not divided the book into sections some sequences are clearly discernible: there are several poems on her son Marcel, all of them charming and beautiful, there are political poems concerned with the fate of Latino women across the Americas, there are lighthearted poems in Spanish about the difficulties of love and there are portraits and hommages of Ana's relatives and friends, etc. In Ana's ouvre, her poetry is like a golden thread connecting her life and her times. Note that her autobiographical poems are often written several years after the events they describe; they are meditations on the significance of her life, showing why Ana is the real thing: a writer with a purpose, with a mission, who takes the time in her poetry to reflect on the value of her life and work. This is clearly an essential book for those concerned with contemporary Chicano writing, for fans of Ana's work, and for all readers who understand the power of commitment.