SOURCE: “The Flowering of Flor y Canto and ‘The Circle of Poetry,’” in Chicano Poetry: A Critical Introduction, Greenwood Press, 1986, pp. 156-201.

In the following excerpt, Candelaria discussesEmplumada and analyses Cervantes's use of Aztec and nature imagery.

[the Flowering of Gi; [the Flowering of flor Y Canto] =~ Sflor Y Canto]

Another poet who adds significantly to flor y canto is Lorna Dee Cervantes, a Chicana who invigorates her skillful verses with the rich resonance of womanhood, a state of being she perceives as large and expansive enough to circumscribe the diversity of human experience. Concerned with capturing the manifold quality of personal experience, including its most private aspects, Cervantes textures her work with vivid details from everyday life. Her verse also reveals a powerfully evoked chicanismo comprehended as both a literal part of her self-identity and as an external source of metaphor.

Because of the consistent fineness...