From Booklist
With inklings of Vallejo, Haskins takes the stance of a foreigner tottering between "home" and "other" in this thin but powerful collection of poetry. Haskins' poems are small vignettes and stories, brief glimpses into the lives of locals and travelers. Tightly worded, they snap with a mariachi's nimble feel for music. Haskins has a gift for juggling pain and pleasure, wisdom and fear, life and death, as she explores Mexican culture. She understands Lorca's idea of duende, a passionate spirit, and evokes it naturally in her work. Her writing demonstrates an acuteness of perception and a maturity of restraint that are refreshing because they produce subtle, thoughtful expressions that stand out from today's stream of in-your-face, confessional and therapeutic verse. Extranjera, Haskins' seventh book of poetry, seems flawed in only one way, its title. For the cumulative effect of this collection of poems is to reveal Lola Haskins as no foreigner to these poetic landscapes. Here, she is on solid home ground. Janet St. John
From Kirkus Reviews
The seventh book of poems by a previous Iowa prizewinner (Hunger, 1996) comes with a glossary of Spanish words appended, which isnt really necessary since Haskins relies on a Hemingwayesque vocabulary that most readers would readily recognize (e.g., cerveza, canciones, queso), but that's typical of Haskinss strained seriousness. After all, shes an extranjera in Mexico who's ashamed of her foreignness (the soft white foreigner) but who mocks other foreigners for paying too much to street vendors. After her Molly Bloomish decision to visit (this time I say Yes. Yes I am/willing now. Yes foreign is a word/for fear. Yes I am coming home.), the poet provides a travelogue of sights and scenes: an old guitarist playing for drinks; a man cleaning fish; a newly widowed woman; a child mourning a sibling lost to sick water. Haskinss Mexico is volatile hombres and voluptuous women and lots of bright colors. Her kitsch catalogue is matched by such banal observations as: they celebrate that life is short, and their coffee comes in small cups. An attempt at Forche-like authenticity, Haskinss poems never even fully explore the ambiguities of her title, except to repeat the idiomatically odd lines It is afraid/ staying in a language where you/ were not born. -- Copyright ©1998, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.
