SOURCE: Smith Nash, Susan. “Sandra Cisneros: Loose Women.” World Literature Today 69, no. 1 (winter 1995): 145-46.

In the following essay, Nash lauds Cisneros's deceptively complex poetic explorations of eros and consciousness.

What distinguishes Sandra Cisneros's poetry is also what makes categorizing it problematic. The sometimes rather flat, unadorned diction and the earthy explorations into the nature of desire seem, at first glance, to position the work squarely within the realm of American feminist poets and artists who privilege the role of experience in recentering and validating women's perspectives and ways of knowing. The first impression that one has of this work is that it is highly realistic, and that it applies techniques of naturalism and verisimilitude.

However, in Loose Woman realism is simply a reference point. What is occurring within the poems is much more complex and psychologically charged. Cisneros probes the extremes of perceptions and negotiates the boundary regions...