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Woman, Woman by Angela de Hoyos Arte Público Press-1985-72pp ISBN: 1-55885-156-9	8888LINKING ROOTS 8888Writing by Six Women With Distinct Ethnic 8888Heritages Editor Bryce Milligan8 8888M&A Editions 1993 ISBN:0-913983-07-1 888856PP

TOC	(5 OF10)THE REST OF THE DEER and from the LISTENING PLACE By Margaret Blanchard

888Introduction by Rolando Hinojosa

8888Reader Beware
8888 WOMAN, WOMAN
8
The present writer finds it only fair to warn the reader lucky enough to find this book: beware!, you're in the hands of a poet. You're meant to read slowly, to ponder, and to reread before moving on to the next entry by Ms. de Hoyos. Your time, then, could not be better spent.

The work begins with Woman, Woman the titular poem, and is then followed by the challenging—and haunting—Go Ahead, Ask Her; the pace doesn't -slow down, either, it merely speeds up and dares and prods the reader to read on.

The present writer did read on and considers himself fortunate, and challenged, too. There are some tough truths in there and some harsher realities, too. But here's something you won't find: mewling, pulling, a hands-on forehead begging for understanding.

The style? Understated, and since the words are clear And, it's a very, very personal work. It speaks to me as a enough, they need no deciphering; it is poetry as it is meant to be.

And, it’s very, very personal work. It speaks to me as a
person, and it will speak to those who buy and keep the

book. One of my favorites, Notice: TO a Would-Be Quixote is included here as are Up to Certain Point and the pointed A (Somewhat Gory) coup de grace.

And then Ms. de Hoyos presents us with a bonus: that fine, crackling Spanish voice can be heard in Poemanonimo Numero Equis and the rollicking Would You Please Rephrase the Question?, among others.

I find it of little value to talk on form and structure in this instance since the content carries the day here. Ms. de Hoyos does as she pleases—as she should—and it pleases very well indeed. Look at To Honor The Fact, and you'll see what I mean. And it's a funny book, too; and it's meant to be, of course.

Why don't you start with How to Eat Crow on a Cold Sunday Morning and Ancient History? And then, for a sustained piece, cut your teeth on In the House of Love,,

As said, we're in the hands of a poet, and one we can
trust to startle and to surprise us. You see, only good can come after a life lived as a labor of love.

8888Woman, Woman (Back cover)
8888Angela de Hoyos

The crisp, clean voices in Angela de Hoyos' poetry have resounded on four continents, garnering awards for her art in the Orient, Europe, South America and the United States. A native of Mexico and long-time resident of San Antonio, De Hoyos continues to publish her works in English and Spanish— her mastery of both languages is unsurpassed—throughout the world: India, England, Switzerland, Australia, Argentina, Mexico... Her previous books include Arise Chicano and Other Poems (Bloomington: Backstage Books, 1975), Chicano Poems: For the Barrio (San Antonio: M & A Editions, 1977), Poems/Poemas (Buenos Aires: La Rosa Blanca, 1975), and Selecciones (Xalapa: Universidad Veracruzana, 1976).

In Woman, Woman, Angela de Hoyos devotes full attention to a leitmotif present in most of her works: that dynamic tension which both unites and separates male and female. In De Hoyos' poems that tension is always erotically charged, always threatening to one sex or the other, always reverberating in the political. And it always results in the creation of a new art, a new esthetic.

Rolando Hinojosa's "Introduction" warns, "Reader Be- ware," beware of the poet, beware at what she may reveal of herself and of you, the reader. "There's some tough truths in there and some harsher realities, too...it is poetry as it is meant to be. And, it's a very, very personal work. It speaks to me as a person, and it will speak to those who buy and keep the book."

888LINKING ROOTS
8888Writing by Six Women With Distinct Ethnic Heritages

8888Introduction

Each writer in Linking Roots has something to do with the graduate program at Vermont College, Norwich University —recent graduates, resident faculty, field faculty, thesis advisers ... even the editor, some years ago, was briefly on the payroll. That so many strong women writers of such varied ethnic backgrounds should end up in a single anthology— published in the center of the continent for an institution at its eastern edge—is no surprise, however. One of the things that Vermont College does best is to gather in disparate voices, disparate talents, whether to learn or to teach—if those two activities can indeed be separated. And the gathering itself is a source of wisdom. Listen as these voices blend in a wise harmony.

First is Margaret Blanchard, of Irish extraction, whose slow rhythms echo the sea that so enchants her in two of these poems, deep and powerful poems that seek wisdom of blind

navigators and refugee infants. Her insights into nature, both human and earthen, have led her to the realization that the spirit is in constant renewal: "I do know that even in this one life," she writes, "I've been born over and over / into wider and wider worlds."

Sheila Sánchez Hatch, a Chicana from San Antonio, describes her core memories of la familia in her sophisticated story, "Sin Palabras," in which memory is viewed like a silent film or a television with the sound off. But neither the writer nor her reader is certain of what is true about these images— sometimes the writer has too little "emotional distance" and the story "must be trashed and a new writer brought in." Combining the cold jargon of screenwriters and the bilingual warmth of a loving granddaughter, this is a story that is, appropriately, of both technical interest and emotional appeal.

Angela de Hoyos, a much beloved and respected poet of international reputation, has given us three dedicatory poems, three moments of insight into events or persons.

Like Blanchard, she is a wise poet, reminding us that we must "share the eloquence of the / simple word, the transcendental / thought, the visceral feeling," in order to "check the carcinoma" of our darker selves "before it can / spread, before it can / devour others. " De Hoyos is a true poet of great - emotional depth with an uncanny ability to evoke presences.

Inés Martinez runs Sandia Press in Brooklyn. Her short story, "Roots," is a chapter-from her novel, To Know the Moon. Set in the early 19th century in San Antonio, this short horrific tale of prejudice and murder feels like "magical realism" but is ultimately too painful to be anything but real. The magic turns out to be a product of folk wisdom and hard knocks survival skills.

Nora Nellis is a Native American poet of Mohawk heritage who lives in upstate New York. In the process of discovering her own roots, Nellis is both patient—waiting for a long dead grandmother's spirit to speak to her in the spirit's own good time—and impatient with all the "tenders of literary gardens / who found lost seeds / then left them / waterless and

parched." Nellis's garden is in full bloom here.

Finally there are the poems of Italian-American short story writer Verbena Pastor. These are poems dense with history and culture, where we observe murdered Jews and patriots, a street of windows and the congeries of artifacts filling a backyard shed, while moons are "waxing and waning into years / the years coiled into a tangle / of women's skeins / draping the windowpanes."

The title of this anthology, Linking Roots, comes from the sense that the network of themes these writers address is like an interwoven root system supporting the great tree of human creativity. The taproot is a single idea that each writer approaches in her own way—the search for wisdom in one's own past and in the experiences of one's ancestors. This -simple human bonding of time and blood links all our roots.

8888—Bryce Milligan
.