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Thursday, November 9, 2023

Woman Without Shame by Sandra Cisneros

Source of book: I own this

 

Back in 2018, the kids and I listened to The House on Mango Street together on our trip to the Grand Canyon (and a few other places in Arizona.) My eldest in particular decided he loved Sandra Cisneros. And who wouldn’t? 

 

Fast forward a few years, and my kid is in college, and takes an epic train trip to San Francisco to spend a week with his uncle and aunt. As our family does, he visited all the famous bookstores, including City Lights. He brought this book back as a Christmas gift for me, knowing we share a love of poetry. 


 

Woman Without Shame is aptly named. The collection centers around Cisneros’ embrace of her body and herself as she finds herself in her fifties. She is less ashamed of her body, even as it has aged and drooped. She has a relationship with sex that is, shall we say, complicated. But also fascinating. I will note, for example, “You Better Not Put Me In A Poem” which is all about her many past lovers…and their penises. 

 

Plenty of poetry collections are about love - and that is a good thing. But this was a welcome contrast in that it is not about love, but about life without romantic love, but instead filled with food, friends, poetry, and normal living. 

 

Cisneros’ voice sounds a bit different than in her early work. She is more relaxed, more confident, less interested in what other people think, and willing to say stuff out loud. What remains the same is her keen eye for people, her love for food and music and poetry, and her gentle, subtle humor. 

 

While most of the poems are in English (and the ones in Spanish are translated by the author), there is a good bit of Spanglish in the collection. I grew up in a primarily Hispanic neighborhood, so I only had to look up a few words to understand her meaning. 

 

The collection was enjoyable from start to finish, and it was difficult to pick which poems to feature in this post. For the most part, I left out the longer ones, just picking a favorite line. This is not to say that the longer ones are lesser - they are excellent too, just a bit long to reproduce. 

 

I’ll start by mentioning “Tea Dance, Provincetown, 1982.” This poem is about Cisneros’ experience at a gay bar and at a gay (unofficially) nude beach. She was the only woman there, and enjoyed the experience. She has a brief fling with a bisexual man, although he refuses to have sex because he has herpes - as Cisneros notes, this was laughable in retrospect, as AIDS was just starting to decimate the gay community, but few were aware of it at that time. 

 

My favorite stanza is this one:

 

It was easy to be half naked

at a gay beach. Men 

didn’t bother to look.

I was in training to be

a woman without shame.

 

This is one of many poems in the collection that tell a story. Tell it slant, of course, as Emily Dickinson put it. But Cisneros is, at her heart, a storyteller. 

 

Next up is “Creed,” which really resonated with me. My understanding of God has changed a lot over the last decade, for many reasons, but primarily my observation of humanity. I wouldn’t say that I agree with Cisneros entirely, but as with poetry generally, it comes at truth from a different and less literal angle. 

 

Creed

 

I believe I am God.

And you are too.

And each and everyone.

But only for a little.

 

I believe God is 

Love, and love is God.

And although some

Doubt God’s existence,

No one doubts the existence of love,

Even and especially those who have 

Never met love.

 

I believe we are

Capable of atrocities beyond

Imagination and equally

Capable of extraordinary

God-acts as well.

 

I believe

There is enough misery 

In the world, but also

Humanity - just a bit

More, I believe.

 

I believe in the power

Of a thought, a word,

To change the world.

 

I believe there is not greater

Sorrow than that of a mother

Who has lost her child.

 

I believe in las madres,

Las madres de las madres,

Y la santisima madre,

La diosa Guadalupe.

 

Because the universe is large enough

To encompass contradictions,

I believe these same mothers sometimes

Create monsters - los machos.

 

I believe mothers and grandmothers

Are the solution to violence,

Not only in Mexico / the United States,

But across the globe.

 

I believe what the generals need now

Are the abuelita brigades armed with

Chanclas to shame, swat, and spank

Los meros machos del mundo.

Amen. 

 

Another poem with a long name tells a story that I thought was fascinating, and also somewhat familiar. 

 

Smith’s Supermarket, Taos, New Mexico, at the Fifteen-Items-or-Less Checkout Line

 

The baby-faced cholo in front of me

gently drops a divider bar between

what’s his and mine.

 

On my side, a six-outlet surge

protector for my computer,

and a fireproof glass cup

for my Lux Perpetua candle,

a votive so powerful it self-destructs.

 

On his, 

a plastic bottle of store-brand vodka.

It’s noon, but somewhere 

it’s happy hour.

 

Baseball cap bad-ass backwards.

Black leather from neck to knees.

One brow and ear stitched with silver.

And on his neck, “Rufina” in wispy

ink I would kiss if I could. Fool,

it takes one to know one. 

 

I drive away wondering

if Rufina is helping him

drink his bottle of forget.

Or if it’s she who is regret. 

 

I write until the dark descends,

My cell warm tonight.

Candles. Copal.

Outside my window,

mountain without a moon,

Buddha in lotus.

Silent and still.

 

By ten, hot bath, lavender salts.

Flannel buttoned to the neck.

Am certain Rufina is not

as happy as I am tonight,

in bed with my love, 

a book. 

 

Here is another one I loved:

 

Sky Wearing a Hat

 

Sky arose

with a hat all its own

made from dirty

sheep-wool. 

 

A hat wide

enough to dye the earth

indigo and lavender with shade.

 

Like sea

seen from an island

facing land.

 

Like the pewter dishes

of country folk

who eat without spoons.

 

Pair this with another poem in the collection:

 

Sky Without a Hat

 

I’m going to sell

the San Miguel sky,

this jacaranda blue

that suits perfectly 

clay roofs. 

 

Of course, it’s available.

Absolutely and for sure.

Here everything is

For

Sale,

Rent,

Lease.

 

Mountain,

prickly pear,

hacienda,

stone,

woman,

mud. 

 

I’ll sell sky

by the slice.

Charge foreigners

double 

for doubling

the cost of living. 

 

Attention!

Sky without shade

for sale, this celestial 

blue in bad need

of a hat.

 

And,

if all goes

as planned:

 

Clouds

For Rent.

 

While most of the poems are not particularly political (except in the broad sense), there are some that are more explicit. Like this one. 

 

This in the News Unmentioned

 

The aged seamstress on

The old road to Queretaro

Has no work. Her

Sewing machine is broken.

Her eyes as well.

 

The rose seller from Santa Julia

Reads Neruda and dreams

Of buying his mother a stove.

It is the time of rain. She

Cooks outdoors with firewood.

 

The housekeeper’s five

Sons have all gone north.

Her favorite won’t phone, and 

She can neither read nore write.

 

Meanwhile, arms drift south 

And drugs shift north.

The avocados, beyond the budget 

Of the seamstress, rose seller,

Housekeeper, travel north too

This season.

 

Police. Politicians.

Mexico. United States.

Business always good

Between the two

Nations. 

 

There is another related line in the longer poem, “El Hombre.” 

 

Message from Mexico to

The United States of America:

When we are safe, you are safe.

When you are safe, we are safe. 

Tell this to your politicians.

 

Since I read this collection around Halloween, I had to include this one. 

 

Dia de los Muertos

 

On Day of the Dead I ask you to come

home with me to see my altar.

That’s a better line than come and see my etchings.

 

You do come. Like the spirits that night.

You follow the xempoaxochitl petals and make

your way to my door, that door abandoned and

solitary a full year. You make your way and say

you’ve been said, and I say I’ve been sad too,

because it’s true, I have.

 

The one before you

alive and haunting my heart, and I

want and long for release from the hurting.

You come with your own ghost following you.

Save me, we think, but don’t say it.

 

I ask, Thirsty? And serve you mezcal before you answer.

Drink the bottle left for los difuntos, clink our copitas.

I’ll send you home with the cabrito I set out for my father,

the chocolate bizcochitos, the bunuelos on a clay plate.

Everything but the confetti jello, I say, and laugh. 

 

Sal y agua on this altar. Salt perhaps for our tears,

water for the dead who are always thirsty.

Scent of warm wax candles and acrid marigolds.

Edith Piaf singing “La vie en rose.” Chavela Vargas.

Lola Beltran. Nina Simone’s “I Put a Spell on You.”

And I wonder if that cabrito will cast its magic spell.

 

The night is long.

We talk late though you have to get up early.

Talk while the dead come back and savor us. Talk,

which is a kind of alimento, a nourishing.

Talk con ganas, as they say. You and I.

With feeling. 

 

There are a number of poems that I wanted to mention lines from - they really are excellent both in context and as stand-alone ideas. 

 

From “Having Recently Escaped from the Maws of a Deathly Life, I Am Ready to Begin the Year Anew”: 

 

All toxic folk are to be excised from the remaining days of my life, the chupacabras and chupacabronas, who are a purgatory of pain. 

 

That line is so good in every way. Toxic people suck your life force, and the keep you in a purgatory of pain. Starting at age 40, I have been excising people like that from my life, whether they are acquaintances from my Fundie years, or family members who have chosen to abuse rather than love. My remaining years are too few to waste inflicting pain on myself via toxic people. 

 

Also related is this one from “Buen arbol / A Good Tree”:

 

I don’t have time for attitude sickness

At this altitude. 

I don’t have time for percolators,

Nuclear reactors. 

 

My favorite line in “Mount Everest,” a memory of her younger years and love affairs:

 

His name?

Ethan. Seamus.

Elton. Or Ian.

Poetry to me.

An empire to conquer.

A foreign language to master.

A notch on my unchastity

belt when my notches

were few.

 

“A notch on my unchastity belt” is just a great line. 

 

I’ll close with the closing poem in the collection, which is also a favorite. I considered quoting only a line or two, but decided the whole thing was wonderful. 

 

When in Doubt

 

When in doubt,

Wear faux leopard.

 

When in doubt,

Err on the side of generosity.

 

When in doubt,

Greet everyone as you would the Buddha.

 

When in doubt,

Collect blessings from those who own nothing. 

 

When in doubt,

Absorb biographies to avoid life’s major mistakes.

 

When in doubt,

Make life’s major mistakes.

 

When in doubt,

Pay attention to the vendor shouting “Diooooos,”

Even when you find out he was only shouting “Gaaaaas.”

 

When in doubt,

Carry a handkerchief and a fan.

 

When in doubt,

Thank everyone. Twice.

 

When in doubt,

Heed the clouds.

 

When in doubt,

Sleep on it.

 

When in doubt,

Treat all sentient and insentient beings as kin.

 

When in doubt,

Forgive us our myopia

As we forgive those who are myopic against us.

 

When in doubt,

Unreel your grief to a tree.

 

When in doubt,

Remember this,

We are all on a 

Caucus-race.

 

There is no start.

No finish.

Everyone wins. 

 

That line about myopia is brilliant. And I also love the reference to Alice in Wonderland at the end. 

 

I greatly enjoyed this book, and am glad to have it in my collection. Also, my kids are the best. Just saying. 

 

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