Writer Sandra Cisneros Finds the Poetry of the World
09/27/23 • 69 min
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Writer Sandra Cisneros has been making sense of the world on the page since 1984’s The House on Mango Street. In honor of Hispanic Heritage Month, we wanted to replay our 2022 conversation with the beloved poet.
We discuss her first poetry collection in 28 years, Woman Without Shame (4:40), why she chooses to write ‘dangerous’ pieces (6:18), and the significance of her poem, “My Mother and Sex” (8:38). Then, we walk through Sandra’s coming of age between Mexico and Chicago (15:16), the sixth-grade teacher that guided her entry into art (19:39), her epiphanies on class in graduate school (23:49), the “Pilsen Barrio” that shaped her seminal novel, The House on Mango Street (29:05), and how Studs Terkel informed her lifelong approach to story (30:17).
On the back-half, we discuss the loves and losses that inspired Sandra’s early sensual poems (36:36), how she documented her power through “Neither Señorita nor Señora” (40:04), a painful period captured in “Year of my Death” (50:30), the day her mother visited her writer’s office in San Antonio (57:56), and why she still has more to say (and write) at age 67 (59:59).
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Writer Sandra Cisneros has been making sense of the world on the page since 1984’s The House on Mango Street. In honor of Hispanic Heritage Month, we wanted to replay our 2022 conversation with the beloved poet.
We discuss her first poetry collection in 28 years, Woman Without Shame (4:40), why she chooses to write ‘dangerous’ pieces (6:18), and the significance of her poem, “My Mother and Sex” (8:38). Then, we walk through Sandra’s coming of age between Mexico and Chicago (15:16), the sixth-grade teacher that guided her entry into art (19:39), her epiphanies on class in graduate school (23:49), the “Pilsen Barrio” that shaped her seminal novel, The House on Mango Street (29:05), and how Studs Terkel informed her lifelong approach to story (30:17).
On the back-half, we discuss the loves and losses that inspired Sandra’s early sensual poems (36:36), how she documented her power through “Neither Señorita nor Señora” (40:04), a painful period captured in “Year of my Death” (50:30), the day her mother visited her writer’s office in San Antonio (57:56), and why she still has more to say (and write) at age 67 (59:59).
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Previous Episode
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Purchase tickets to see Stop Making Sense in theaters here.
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This conversation was recorded at Spotify Studios.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Talk Easy with Sam Fragoso - Writer Sandra Cisneros Finds the Poetry of the World
Transcript
Pushkin. This is Talk Easy. I'm standing for Goso. Welcome to the show today. I'm joined by writer and poet Sandra Cisneros. Her debut book was called The House on Mango Street. I told the story of a twelve year old Chicana growing up, as Cisneros did, in a Latin neighborhood of Chicago. Since the book's release in nineteen eighty three, it sold over six million copies and has become required reading in middle schools, high schools, and universit
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