cover image Mouth to Mouth: Poems by Twelve Contemporary Mexican Women

Mouth to Mouth: Poems by Twelve Contemporary Mexican Women

. Milkweed Editions, $14.95 (233pp) ISBN 978-0-915943-71-5

The 12 poets featured by Gander ( Rush to the Lake ) in this bilingual collection, most from the post-war generation, have apparently been brought together because of their link to the feminist movement. Accordingly, this writing includes ``testimonials'' that record the daily experience of women, and it claims to engage an expressive language that defines itself against a traditional poetic voice. Unfortunately, in this case, the result is a composite work that is in fact marginal. From the opening poem with its ludicrous and clumsy description of men (``There is ritual emotion, / the cyclical summer heats up their balls. / They wait, they sniff, they prepare their come-ons'') to the last selection with its fussy and obscure imagery (``Lovely deserted boundaries . . . / . . . mirages, blurring echoes / bind them together . . . ''), the writing is self-indulgent and, for the most part, maudlin. There is little that characterizes this as Mexican writing; both the form and content are indistinguishable from similar texts by American poets of a certain caliber who are interested chiefly in undisciplined self-expression. (May)