“When your writing is unselfconscious, when it comes from your heart, that’s when it’s powerful.”
SANDRA CISNEROS, WRITER
Sandra Cisneros is a writer who explores the lives of ordinary people through poetry and prose. The only daughter in a Mexican-American family of seven children, she grew up in a Chicago neighborhood divided by racial and income inequality and a childhood punctuated by regular trips to Mexico.
Encouragement from her mother to write and express herself led to a keen interest in writing early on, cemented through regular visits to the public library. “I never knew you could own a book until I was about twelve,” she said. The library became the source of her discovery of storytelling, and of subconsciously picking up the writing styles of the authors she found there.
At school she was known as “the poet.” She published her first book—a poetry collection called Bad Boys—in 1980. Four years later, she published ‘The House on Mango Street,’ the first of eight novels to date and perhaps her most well-known work.
‘The House on Mango Street’ is presented as a series of lyrical vignettes, in a style influenced by the experimental Latin American Boom novels. This literary trend, popular in the 1960s and ‘70s, that treated time as nonlinear and often used more than one narrative perspective or voice. Sometimes described as “cubist” in form—the layering of varied perspectives and points of view—they are structurally complex and use vernacular as a technical tool. They can be a demanding read, but rewarding to those who take on the stylistic as well as the literary journey.
Cisneros ‘writes’ in two languages – Spanish and English. She thinks, composes, and constructs with the syntax and sensibility of Spanish. Though the word on the page is in English, both languages are ever-present. “It’s engrained in the way I look at the world, and the way I construct sentences and stories,” she said. The resulting blend is, in part, what separates Cisneros from her peers.
Cisneros writes candidly and is forthright and outspoken in her opinion, especially around issues close to her heart – examining race, class, and gender through the lives of ordinary people and across cultures and social groups. These themes permeate her work, deepening and broadening our understanding of what it means to be ‘American.’
“I discovered a poetic truth, that you have to write as if what you had to say is too dangerous to publish in your lifetime. Then your ego gets out of the way, and you allow the light to come through you. You write from a more honest place.”
Today, Cisneros lives and works in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico.
“I decided that it wasn’t enough to put the instructions in my will; it would be too late. But if I put them in a poem everyone would know.”
HAPPENING
Thursday, November 30, 7pm
FACB: Holiday Edition!
Welcome the holiday season with a funny, irreverent, and unforgettable evening with writer-performer and storyteller Christine Ernst as she returns to the Cultural Center for her 12th year.
DETAILS & TICKET
Friday, December 1, 7:30pm
YULE & OTHER HOLIDAY FAVORITES
with Naomi Westwater
A celebration of the season – in wonderful music and song.