Blog post
On page thirty-three of Sandra Cisneros’s Loose Woman book there is the poem titledThe Heart Rounds up the Usual Suspects. I found this poem very interesting because I read it as a message to all women. In the poem Cisneros’s has one stanza that reads
I’m loony as a June Bride.
Cold as a bruja’s tit.
A pathetic bitch.
In short, an ordinary woman.
Grateful to excessiveness.
When Cisneros’s references ordinary woman, it seems to me that this poem is made in honor of woman who feel that being alone and accepting to whatever they are already able to do is enough. Also in the poem she has two lines that read “Armed and Dangerous. But only to me”. Clearly she is making the assumption or the statement that woman are very accepting of the bare minimum and in the long run it is only hurting them. One may believe that since Cisneros’s is Hispanic that she could possibly be speaking on behalf of minority women as well. This poem itself does well with tying into a lot of the readings and video viewings we have did in class that consists of powerful women who are making statements on behalf of their gender or their race such as Audre Lorde or Phyllis Wheatley.
I would look at the poem in a concurring way. To put it out there, I would suggest that there is a hint of purposeful complacency that Cisneros injects into it. What I mean by this is that she seems to highlight her personal understanding as to the "ordinary woman" seen on the outside. Just by reading the poem, and connecting the title as well, I get the sense that Cisneros is commenting on the perceptions of a "male-dominated" society.
ReplyDeleteThe images of her as a spider "luring the leery into my pretty web", to "sticking to the cyclops who takes me", to me, seem pretty suggestive of women, in general, being conniving and also weak-hearted. And if we go to the last line, like you suggested, she seems to say that women do not take their abilities far enough to affect change of those perceptions. As I said above, there is an overall sense of complacency with the spirit of the "ordinary" woman. On the whole, I think that Cisneros is not casting these in a positive light. Indeed, I think that one could read a bit of cynicism and sarcasm into her voice, as much of her other poems in "Loose Woman" take on.