Barbara Brinson Curiel's poetry has strong roots in the oral and written folklore traditions of Chicano-Mexican and Anglo-American cultures. Her complex, yet accessible, literary work confronts issues such as gender, the search for identity, and affirmation of community.

Born on 11 December 1956 in San Francisco, California, Barbara Brinson grew up in the Mission District at a time when the previously middle-class neighborhood was becoming a more working-class environment. Her mother, Dolores Pineda Brinson, did clerical work in doctors' offices, and her father, Wilkin Brinson, worked as a laborer, eventually becoming a salesman. The eldest of three children, Brinson has a sister, Linda, and a brother, William. Until the seventh grade she attended public school. Then she attended St. James Girls School and Immaculate Conception Academy, both Catholic schools run by Dominican nuns.

Brinson recalls that at the age of eight she was composing poems and stories and was encouraged...