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Title: My Wicked Wicked Ways by Sandra Cisneros ISBN: 0-679-41821-0 Publisher: Knopf Pub. Date: 17 November, 1992 Format: Hardcover Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $24.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 5 (4 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: Song Sung Blue
Comment: The tragic are those figures who face devestation with a certain unblinking acceptance- not stoicism, not heroism- but the ability to look at themselves clearly.
Sandra Cisneros, in her first collection of poems "My Wicked Wicked Ways" was able to evoke this sense of drama repeatedly in her monologues of fictional characters and in songs which seemed to be sung by the poet herself about her life. My personal favourite "Something Crazy" illustrates the necessary conditions of the form:
The man with the blue hat
doesn't come back anymore.
He stopped a long time ago.
Before I got married. Before the kids came.
Nobody looks at me like that anymore.
...
I was young then, understand?
Nobody ever looked at me before.
I even dreamed that he might take me
to my highschool dance, imagine.
Waitresses have come and gone,
I've stayed on.
The speaker is stationary, in the restaurant where she works- the man in the blue hat is already a thing of the past when the poem opens. She loves him because he is the ONLY thing that ever came along that loved her or that she could love. In its tone and perfection this poem reminds one of the torch-song as perfected by Billy Holiday. As in that genre the speaker stands alone and sings of a love, an overwhelming passion, almost always in the past. What is present is the pain- and the understatement of the pain and the ability through an embrace of the nostalgia of love to transcend it for a moment in a reach for remembered happiness, and recalled warmth despite the present cold. This is the tension of the genre. The speaker is pinned, unable to leave their grief, but attempts to transcend it in a song.
It is the formula, arguably, of any powerful dramatic song or poem- the speaker in pain. But the formula always depends upon the absence of a choice- these people are dramatic because fate has placed them where they are and they could not, whether they wish to or not, be anywhere else.
The title poem of "My Wicked Wicked Ways" picks up on the author's Don Juan Dad, tags him with the mixed mockery (not least self-mockery) and affection of Errol Flynn's autobiography title- and makes the best of a painful reality by recycling this family condition- as best she can- into her own bravura stance. In the poem's photo of a young married couple the father's coming affairs are not yet seen, and neither is the nature of the baby in her mother's arms:
She does not know yet
I will turn out bad.
The stance which will emerge is that of the "bad" girl, the "Loose Woman", the one who loves 'em and leaves 'em when fate or, crucially, a pose of independence, requires. I say that this stance is a pose or theatrical attitude because I find the poems of heartache and loneliness much more convincing.
In "Loose Woman", the follow up collection, the stance overwhelms the tragedy, in this book the song is sung blue and pure. Very few weak poems here. A selection that stings your throat like a shot of tequila. An album you'll put on your turn table again and again.
Rating: 5
Summary: It doesn't get any better than this!
Comment: Sandra Cisneros is undoubtedly my favorite poet of all time. Her writing is honest, beautiful, simple, humorous, poignant and sad, all at the same time. "My Wicked Wicked Ways" is Cisneros at her best - fresh and sassy, biting and funny, thoughtful and independent. I sooooo highly recommend this book to all - whether you are an avid poetry-enthusiast or are just starting to have interest in the subject. She's wonderful!
Rating: 5
Summary: Wonderful read.
Comment: Sandra Cisneros is one of my favorite female authors. I was first introduced to her work in a women's studies class. We read "Women Hollering Creek" and after that I read all of her other stuff. This paricular collection of poems is fantastic. My favorite is One Last Poem For Richard.
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Title: Loose Woman : Poems by Sandra Cisneros ISBN: 0679755276 Publisher: Vintage Pub. Date: 14 March, 1995 List Price(USD): $11.00 |
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Title: Caramelo by Sandra Cisneros ISBN: 0679742581 Publisher: Vintage Pub. Date: 09 September, 2003 List Price(USD): $13.95 |
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Title: Woman Hollering Creek : And Other Stories by Sandra Cisneros ISBN: 0679738568 Publisher: Vintage Pub. Date: 03 March, 1992 List Price(USD): $11.00 |
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Title: The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros ISBN: 0679734775 Publisher: Vintage Pub. Date: 03 April, 1991 List Price(USD): $9.95 |
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Title: Hairs/Pelitos by Sandra Cisneros ISBN: 0679890076 Publisher: Random House Pub. Date: 25 November, 1997 List Price(USD): $6.99 |
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