The first and still the most complete anthology of the best U. S. Latino and Latina poets from diverse origins in the Latin world: Cuba, Colombia, the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Guatemala, Mexico, and Puerto Rico. "Readers should be prepared for weeping, laughing, and awe" (Harvard Review). Alvarez, Baca, Cervantes, Espada, Firmat, Gonzalez, Medina, Pau-Llosa, Rios, Rodriguez, Saenz, Villaneuva, et. al. Distributed by Syndetic Solutions, Inc.

These Are Not Sweet Girls, an anthology of 53 Latin American poets (including a single Brazilian, Adelia Prado), strives to combat "the offical discourse of power" that keeps women's poetry outside the literary mainstream. Poets range from Gabriela Mistral (born 1889) and Alfonsina Storni (born 1892) to Teresa Calderon and editor Agosin (both born 1955). Chilean Alicia Galaz Vivar looks to the day when men erase their superior smiles and wash away "the sad fury of mortal decisions"; Puerto Rican Olga Nolla lashes out at Aristotle for calling women "mutilated men"; and Mexican Rosario Castellanos reflects that "we give life only to what we hate." The anthology is not bilingual, and the translators are individually noted. Although none of the Sweet Girls cross over into Paper Dance, nearly half of the 55 Latino poets featured in Paper Dance are also women, and their bicultural testimony is sometimes more intense. Sandra Maria Esteves condemns Spain's "legacy denied," and Magdalena Gomez curses Columbus "who feared no error/as long as the crucified/did not look like himself." Others re-create Hispanic figures such as Joaquin Murieta or Federico Garcia Lorca or invent a "Marilyn Monroe Indian." Americans of every Hispanic background are represented, urban as well as rural. Julia Alvarez and Jimmy Santiago Baca are here, but (inexplicably) Sandra Cisneros and Ana Castillo are not. Recommended for poetry collections.‘Jack Shreve, Allegany Community Coll., Cumberland, Md. From: Reed Elsevier Inc. Copyright Reed Business Information

This vibrant anthology of the work of Latino and Latina poets living in the U.S. is a celebration of social, cultural, and private interfaces. Their poems examine the complex and ever-evolving relationships between tradition and change, Spanish and English, rural and urban, private and public, female and male, young and old, past and present, native and immigrant, dream and reality, love and despair, joy and anger, art and life. These profound themes engage such seasoned talents as Julia Alvarez, Judith Ortiz Cofer, Juan Felipe Herrera, Pat Mora, Alberto Alvaro Ros, Luis J. Rodrguez, and Tino Villeanueva, as well as emerging writers, including Sandra M. Castillo, Adrian Castro, Silvia Curbelo, Diana Rivera, and Gina Valdez. A poetry collection would usually be described as a chorus of voices, but the editors were right to choose dance for their title. These poems do dance in a dazzling array of tempos and moods. Some are elegant and graceful; others are clownish and mocking, frenzied, sultry, or threatening, but all are charged with the electricity of emotion, the current of thought and observation, and the rhythms of the body. --Donna Seaman From: Syndetics Solutions, Inc. Distributed by Syndetic Solutions, Inc.