Tuesday, July 14, 2009

Latina Sexuality in Poems

I've started teaching my class Women, Art & Culture. Today we read our first poem from the book Loose Woman Poems by Sandra Cisneros.

It's funny how some poems come back to you. I've been teaching this class for over five years and always go back to reread them. This poem spoke to me this time around for many different reasons. Often I'm an "outsider" when reading some poems, other times it's as if poems capture exactly what I'm experiencing.

Our first poem is "Perras" which I've provided below:

I can't imagine that goofy white woman
with you. Her pink skin on your dark.
Your tongue on hers. I can't
imagine without laughing.
Who would've thought.

Not her ex-boyfriend--
your good ol' ex-favorite best buddy,
the one you swore was thicker than kin,
blood white brother, friend--
who wants to slit you open like a pig
and i don't blame him.

Isn't it funny.
He acting Mexican.
You acting white.

I can't imagine this woman.
Nor your white ex-wife. Nor any
of those you've hugged and held,
so foreign from the country we shared.

Damn. Where's your respect?
You could've used a little imagination.
Picked someone I didn't know. Or at least,
a bitch more to my liking.

p. 58

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