Defiance In The Poetry Of Cisneros Essay

Through her poetry, Cisneros beautifully illustrates the type of defiance that she herself, even in her own character: "The mob arrives with stones and sticks/to maim and lame and do me in/All the same, when I open my mouth/they wobble like gin." The first two lines mean her critics have all the necessary tools to label her as what she is (i.e. a bitch because she is a woman and also because she talks so freely about sensitive matters) but coming to the ending 'When I open my mouth, they wobble like gin' it seems that although she is ripe for attacking, once she opens her mouth and says her piece, they falter under the force and truth of her words.
This poem is not only defiance but also acceptance, shown in these lines: "I am the woman of myth and bullshit. (True. I authored some of it.)" and "I like the itch I provoke. The rustle of rumor like crinoline."
These are the words of a woman who is fully aware of the affect she is having on her male audience and isn’t afraid of the heft it holds. This poem is also a warning; near the end as she says 'I’m Bitch. Beast. Macha. Wachale! Ping! Ping! Ping! I break things.” She knows what is being said about her, she accepts it, and she is going to continue pushing forward, offering future

The reader follows the speaker’s inner thoughts as if he or she were saying them out loud in a distinctive voice; often the speaker is engaged in some specific actions while thinking. An example is “My Friend Lucy Who Smells Like Corn,” a story that communicates the joys of youthful friendship in a poor neighborhood. The speaker breathlessly describes her friend while recounting past and current activities and adventures, including snatches of dialogue. She reveals her pleasures in playing at Lucy’s house with her friend’s eight sisters and tells of her wish for sisters of her own so that she could sleep with them “instead of alone on a fold-out chair in the living