I Ask the Impossible: Poems [Paperback]

Ana Castillo (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 20, 2001

An Anchor Books Original

Cherished for her passionate fiction and exuberant essays, the author hailed by Julia Alvarez as ?una storyteller de primera,? and by Barbara Kingsolver in The Los Angeles Times as ?impossible to resist,? returns to her first love?poetry?to reveal an unwavering commitment to social justice, and a fervent embrace of the sensual world.

With the poems in I Ask the Impossible, Castillo celebrates the strength that "is a woman?buried deep in [her] heart." Whether memorializing real-life heroines who have risked their lives for humanity, spinning a lighthearted tale for her young son, or penning odes to mortals, gods, goddesses, Castillo?s poems are eloquent and rich with insight. She shares over twelve years of poetic inspiration, from her days as a writer who ?once wrote poems in a basement with no heat," through the tenderness of motherhood and bitterness of loss, to the strength of love itself, which can ?make the impossible a simple act." Radiant with keen perception, wit, and urgency, sometimes erotic, often funny, this inspiring collection sounds the unmistakable voice of a "woman on fire? / and more worthy than stone."

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

The prolific novelist, poet, essayist and xicanista Castillo checked in most recently with My Daughter, My Son, The Eagle, The Dove: An Aztec Chant, an inspirational gift book, and Peel My Love Like an Onion, a first-person tale of immigration and reimagined selfhood. This fifth poetry collection displays all the energy and political commitment of Castillo's work in other genres, but holds few formal or conceptual surprises. Nevertheless, many readers will be happy to bask in their speaker's experiences and longings or to get angry and motivated by her cries for justice: "Women don't riot,/ not in maquilas in Malaysia, Mexico, or Korea..../ We don't storm through cities,/ take over the press, make a unified statement,/ once and for all: A third millennium call--from this day on no more, not me, not my daughter,/ not her daughter either." Over the course of 60 sometimes multilingual, mostly page-or-less monologues, Castillo's speaker brashly addresses the pope, celebrates Zapatista leader Comandante Ramona, eulogizes friend Dieter Herms, sits alone in a new city ("I have had PMS for three days./ If I drink myself into a stupor, who'll know?"), imagines being seduced by Nastassia Kinski and goes about her business with passion and dignity. The abundant erotic parables and mystical invocations work much less well, often filled with clich‚s and awkward cadences. But the point here is in the immediacy and the message; this book is worth its weight in a thousand arid ekphrases and aestheticizations. (Mar. 27)Forecast: Nothing much distinguishes these poems from those of many other mestiza feminists speaking out in small presses across the country--except Castillo's relative fame, which adds to her speaker's winning confidence. Fans from her other genres will see Castillo's bright smile on the cover of this book and pick it up.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

Castillo enjoys an enviable reputation as a novelist, essayist, and poet, the latter evident in this collection. Although several of these poems have appeared previously in print, including the contemporary classic "El Chicle," this anthology represents the cumulative product of Castillo's poetic muse under one cover. Her commitment to social protest, as seen earlier in My Father Was a Toltec: And Selected Poems, is renewed here in several poems which, as the weakest and most routine of the lot, are less likely to stand the test of time. In their immediacy, however, the poems dealing with death strike a more universal chord; we share Castillo's emotions and inquisitions as she confronts the prospect of death in her family and, ultimately, in herself. Castillo also continues the work she has done in an amorous vein; the titular poem is simple, lyrical, and poignant. In sum, this retrospective provides a delightful and enticing orientation to one of the most outstanding Chicanas writing today.DLawrence Olszewski, OCLC Lib., Dublin, OH
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 144 pages
• Publisher: Anchor; 1st Anchor Books ed edition (March 20, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0385720734
• ISBN-13: 978-0385720731
• Product Dimensions: 5.2 x 0.3 x 8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #422,728 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Lessons on the true meaning of commitment, June 24, 2001

By 

"the_drone" - See all my reviews

This review is from: I Ask the Impossible: Poems (Paperback)

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.

5.0 out of 5 stars I Ask the Impossible, April 20, 2011

By 

Lisa - See all my reviews

This review is from: I Ask the Impossible: Poems (Paperback)

I do think Ana is an amazing writer, I ask the Impossible is brilliantly written, who cares if she's on the cover.
Well, let's see her on the horse, the beloved Irish American poet Tess Gallagher put one on her book.
Ana lives on a ranch, why not? It's so hard for a writer to sell books, I say whatever helps! Market away!

5.0 out of 5 stars Bravo!, March 15, 2004

By A Customer

This review is from: I Ask the Impossible: Poems (Paperback)

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.