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The article explores the recovery of Mexican American popular poetry from the early twentieth century.

Representations of nature in Chicano poetry have developed from nationalist claims to the land in movimiento cultural politics to ecopoetic conceptions of language, nature, and identity. This essay uses Juan Felipe Herrera's idea of "undocuments" to theorize a turn from the collective "our house" in "El Plan Espiritual de Aztlan" to oikos, the natural "household" that is the Greek root of the word ecology. The ecological dimensions of "undocumentary" destabilize Chicano identity formations based on anthropocentric relationships to the land and reveal how documentary modes fail to incorporate undocumented persons who exist outside the "house." By introducingLoma Dee Cervantes's Emplumada as an initial work of Chicano ecopoetry that is transformed in Mana Melendez's How Long She'll Last in This World and j. Michael Martinez's Heredities, the essay argues that their books call into question the epistemology and ontology of claims to the land. Rather than document Chicano myths, origins, and identities that assert such claims, as Cervantes does in her feminist revisions of movimiento poetics, Melendez's and Martinez's collections demonstrate the expanding ecological awareness, aestheticrange, and phibsophical inquiries of Chicano poetics in an era of environmental and immigration crises. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Presents literary criticism for the poetry of Lorna Dee Cervantes. Themes of love and hunger and their relation to a poetics of loss are examined. Particular focus is given to the poems "To We Who Were Saved by the Stars" and "Pleiades from the Cables of Genocide." The female experience of grief in response to cultural and historic loss is explored.

The article examines the social and cultural effects of human migration in literature, specifically Mexican immigrants in the United States. According to the article, many of the themes that are found throughout Latin American literature primarily deal with childhood, family, and the roles of women within the family. Hispanic-American author Pat Mora has written extensively regarding the Chicano culture as seen in poetry collections such as "Aunt Carmen's Book of Practical Saints" and "Agua Santa: Holy Water."

This article discusses the work of poet Jimmy Santiago Baca, who is known for his outspoken representations of the Chicano community. "Immigrants in Our Own Land" was his first book of poems published in 1979. It contained many autobiographical elements while raising political awareness of a distinct Chicano culture and environmentalism.

The article explores the preoccupation of Mexican American poet and fiction writer Gil Cuadros with processes of identity scripting and signage. The author said that the autobiographically modulated poetry, prose collection, and other published works of Cuadros have survived as significant set of AIDS testimonials. He added that Cuadros' writings are a textual response to the multiple signifying systems that battle across the Chicano body which exists as the textual site for a struggle among mutually affective and potentially conflictive, identificatory positions.

A critique is presented of visual poems such as "Impresión de la Habana," "El puñal," and "Talon rouge" by early 20th century Mexican American poet José Juan Tablada. Avant-garde poetry, Tablada's calligram poems, and his influence from French poetry are discussed, as well as his association with author Marius de Zayas in New York City.

The article focuses on the poetry of Chicana writer Pat Mora. The author explores how Mora's feminist beliefs impact her poetics, examines the literal and figurative meanings behind the use of borders within her poetry, and discusses her published collections of poetry, "Chants" and "Communion" and essays "Nepantla. Essays from the Land in the Middle."

The essay focuses on the establishment of poetry within the Chicano movement of the 1960s, particularly the work of poets, Michael Sierra, Juan Felipe Herrara, and Luis J. Rodriguez. The author provides background information on the cultural revolution that was the Chicano movement, analyzes the relationship between poetry and politics, and discusses how identity is obtained in Chicano poetry.

This poem demonstrates the importance of the Latino/Latina vote in this election year. The reader will be able to find that the Latino experience described in the poem resonates with many other Latino/Latina experiences within our families, communities and society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This essay examines Poet Francisco X. Alarcón's artistic expression of romance for gays within Latino communities. This study advances the concept of a "homoamorous" genre that privileges intimacy and romance between gay men without sensationalizing the physical contact such relationships may include. It also traces the evolution of Alarcón's expression of his gay identity over the course of three decades from verse that centered upon loneliness and guilt, through a period of "liberation" poetry, and ultimately to a long and very productive period resulting in a body of work that captures the love and sexual satisfaction that can grow from a committed relationship. These periods are marked by different imagery, language, and poetic structure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]