Ana Castillo enjoys a favorable reputation among critics writing for a number of prestigious publications. In an article for MELUS, Elsa Saeta depicts Castillo as "One of the most articulate, powerful voices in contemporary Chicana literature . . . whose work has long questioned, subverted, and challenged the status quo." Janet Jones Hampton writes in an article for Americas, "Her poems, like her prose, recount the struggles and survival skills of marginalized peoples and sing of their dreams and hopes." Marjorie Agosin in MultiCultural Review praises Castillo as "lyrical and passionate" and "one of the country's most provocative and original writers."

In a critique specific to I Ask the Impossible, Donna Seaman in Booklist says Castillo's poems are "alight with stubborn love, crackling wit, and towering anger." A Publishers Weekly critic says of I Ask the Impossible that the point of Castillo's poetry is the "immediacy and the message...