SOURCE: "Many-Colored Poets," in The Women's Review of Books, Vol. VI, No. 12, September, 1989, pp. 29-31.

An American poet, short story writer, and editor, Randall frequently writes on Hispanic themes. In the excerpt below, she offers a positive assessment of Skins and Bones, asserting that these are "poems of identity: moving back in time, conjuring, inventing, reclaiming memory and using it powerfully."

Paula Gunn Allen, recently 50, is a Laguna Pueblo/Sioux/Lebanese woman whose critical work as well as her poetry and fiction have reached a powerful maturity. Born in 1939, she was raised on a Spanish land grant in New Mexico. Her life and work move back and forth between the landscapes of her growing, her culture in its traditions, and the scholarship that has made that heritage a documented resource for us all.

Allen is best known for The Sacred Hoop: Recovering the Feminine in American Indian Traditions...