1. The biographical information on Lucha Corpi is based on Barbara Brinson-Pineda, "Poets on Poetry: Dialogue with Lucha Corpi," Prisma (Mills College, Department of Ethnic Studies, 1979), pp. 4-9; Corpi's short autobiography in Palabras de Mediodía / Noon Words ; and my interview with Lucha Corpi in June 1980. Corpi also gives autobiographical details in Fireflight: Three Latin-American Poets (Berkeley, Calif.: Oyez, 1976), pp. 43-44. Ten of Corpi's poems appear in Fireflight ; most of them are reprinted in Palabras de Mediodía .

2. Palabras de Mediodía / Noon Words , trans. Catherine Rodríguez-Nieto (Berkeley: El Fuego de Aztlán Publications, 1980), contains an continue

eight-page introduction by the Mexican author, Juan José Arreola, also translated into English. Of the forty-eight poems in this collection, only two, "Time" and "Underground Mariachi," are in English, and they are translated into Spanish (pp. 74-75, 76-77). All the poems reproduced in this chapter are from this edition.

3. For examples in Mexican songs and lyrics, see Cancionero Folklórico de México , 5 vols., compiled and edited by researchers of the Centro de Estudios Linguisticos y Literarios de El Colegio de México, under the direction of Margit Frenk (1975-1984). For examples of men eating the fruit or cutting the flower, see the Cancionero, Coplas del Amor Feliz 1 (1975), 193-195. For a brief but helpful introduction to Mexican popular poetry and lyrics, see Jacobo Chencinsky, "El Mundo Metafórico de la Lírica Popular Mexicana," Anuario de Letras 1 (Mexico City, 1961), 113-148.

4. Printed in La Cosecha , a special issue of De Colores (Albuquerque: Pajarito Publications) 3, 3 (1977), 74-89. All translations from "Tres Mujeres" are mine.

5. This expression comes from the experience of people living in Mexico and other areas of Latin America. The phrase una mujer muy sufrida means a self-sacrificing woman.

6. According to Jacques Soustelle ( Daily Life of the Aztecs [Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1961], p. 55), Iztaccíhuatl was a priestess in charge of the physical preparation for certain ceremonies, particularly the sweeping of holy places. The legend of Iztaccíhuatl as sleeping woman or princess is in the popular imagination of Mexican people, but it is not documented by sources on pre-Columbian civilization and culture. The name is frequently spelled with an x instead of a z . I follow the spelling given in Luis Cabrera, Diccionario de aztequismos (Mexico City: Ediciones Oasis, 1975), p. 84.

Corpi's second reference to the princess in white, a little farther on, alludes to the "snowy peaks of two giants." Corpi is referring to the chain formed by Iztaccíhuatl and Popocatépetl, or the Sierra Nevada.

7. Iris Blanco, "Participación de las Mujeres en la Sociedad Prehispánica," in Essays on la mujer, ed. Rosaura Sánchez and Rosa Martinez Cruz (Los Angeles: Chicano Studies Center, University of California, 1977), pp. 48-80 (see esp. p. 56).

8. In a Mexican context, I am thinking of Octavio Paz's El laberinto de la soledad (Mexico City: Fondo de Cultura Económica, 1959), translated as The Labyrinth of Solitude by Lysander Kemp (New York: Grove Press, 1961); and novels by Carlos Fuentes, such as La Región Más Transparente (Mexico City: Fondo de Cultura Económica, 1958), translated as Where the Air Is Clear by Sam Hileman (New York: Obolensky, 1960), and La Muerte de Artemio Cruz (Mexico City: Fondo de Cultura Económica, 1961), translated as The Death of Artemio Cruz by Sam Hileman (New York: Farrar, Straus, 1965). These Mexican writers tend to represent the sociohistorical conquest as a rape by the Spaniards, thereby implying the virginity and purity of pre-Columbian civilization. break

In a Chicano context, I include Corky Gonzalez, "I Am Joaquin," one of the first poems to appear in the Chicano movement; the early poems by Alurista; and even the novels Peregrinos de Aztlán (Tucson: Editorial Peregrinos, 1974), by Miguel Mendez, and Bless Me , Ultima (Berkeley: Quinto Sol Publications, 1972), by Rudolfo Anaya. Such poems and novels tend to simplify the process of colonization by romanticizing native American cultures as more natural and human than the corrupt and materialistic cultures, whether Spanish or Anglo-American, which overcame them.

9. See the play by Carlos Fuentes, Todos los gatos son pardos (Mexico City: Siglo Veintiuno Editores, 1970), for the variations on Marina's name: "Malintzin . . . Marina . . . Malinche. . . . Tres fueron tus nombres, mujer: el que te dieron tus padres, el que te dio tu amante y el que te dio tu pueblo. . . . Malintzin, dijeron tus padres: hechicera, diosa de la mala suerte y de la reyerta de sangre. . . . Marina dijo tu hombre, recordando el océano por donde vino hasta estas tierras. . . . Malinche, dijo tu pueblo: traidora, lengua y guía del hombre blanco."

For the English translation, see Rachel Phillips, "Marina / Malinche: Masks and Shadows," in Women in Hispanic Literature: Icons and Fallen Idols , ed. Beth Miller (Berkeley, Los Angeles, London: University of California Press, 1983), p. 112: "Malintzin . . . Marina . . . Malinche. . . . You had three names, woman: the one your parents gave you, the one your lover gave you, and the one your people gave you. . . . Malintzin, said your parents: enchantress, goddess of ill fortune and blood feud. . . . Marina, said your man, remembering the ocean he crossed to come to this land. . . . Malinche, said your people: traitress, white man's mouthpiece and guide."

10. Soustelle, Daily Life of the Aztecs , p. 2.

11. I am thinking here of the well-known comment made by José Martí during his stay in the United States: "He vivido en el monstruo y conozco sus entrañas, y mi honda es la honda de David" ("I have lived in the monster and know its very innards, and my sling is the sling of David"). José Martí was a poet, an intellectual, and a fighter for Cuban independence.

12. For examples, see "Quedarse Quieto" ("Keeping Still"), pp. 4-8; "Girasol" ("Sunflower"), pp. 72-73; "Time" ("Tiempo"), pp. 74-75; "La Casa de los Espejos" ("House of Mirrors"), pp. 102-107; and "Lento Liturgico," pp. 108-109. No title is given to the English translation of this poem.

13. See Brinson-Pineda, "Poets on Poetry," pp. 5-6.

14. Sandra M. Gilbert and Susan Gubar, The Madwoman in the Attic (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1979), p. 96.

15. Gilbert and Gubar (ibid., pp. 4-11) discuss the implications for women writers of the notion of "author" as male and the pen as a metaphorical penis.

14. Sandra M. Gilbert and Susan Gubar, The Madwoman in the Attic (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1979), p. 96.

15. Gilbert and Gubar (ibid., pp. 4-11) discuss the implications for women writers of the notion of "author" as male and the pen as a metaphorical penis.

16. Corpi defines teponaztle as a flute used by Indians to announce the celebration of festivities in honor of the gods ( Palabras de Mediodía , p. xxvii), but I follow the definition given by Cabrera ( Diccionario , p. 134): a percussion instrument sometimes used as a drum. Corpi continue

also identifies Francisco Gabilondo Soler, whom I mention at the end of the paragraph.

17. Atole is a Mexican drink made of cooked corn that is ground, dissolved, filtered, and boiled.

18. Corpi uses the words, "cultivadoras de indecibles" ("cultivators of the unsayable") to describe herself and her literary precursor in "Emily Dickinson," pp. 134-135.

19. Chencinsky, "El Mundo Metafórico," p. 145.

20. A more openly political poem is "Underground Mariachi" (see n. 2, above).

21. Oddly enough, terms that designate male genitalia are frequently feminine in Spanish, for example, la verga ("penis"), and terms that designate female genitalia are masculine, for example, el coño ("vagina").

22. Here I think Rodríguez-Nieto's English translations, though in general sensitive and accurate, impoverish the Spanish text. A few other examples occur in "Romance Negro"; for example, arrancar in line 18 is translated as "cut," a rendition that does not express the violence suggested by the Spanish word. For other examples, see nn. 35, 38, below.

23. Blanco, "Participación de las Mujeres," pp. 75-76.

24. Paz, Labyrinth , pp. 65-88; Fuentes, Todos los gatos son pardos , pp. 173-175. For a translation of the Fuentes passage on Marina as Chingada in Todos los gatos , see Literatura Chicana: Texto y Contexto , ed. Antonia Castañeda, Tomás Ybarra-Frausto, and Joseph Sommers (Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall, 1972), pp. 305-306.

25. Labyrinth , p. 86.

26. Ibid., p. 80.

25. Labyrinth , p. 86.

26. Ibid., p. 80.

27. Two other Chicana poets have also reassessed Marina's image: Carmen Tafolla, "La Malinche," in Encuentro Artístico Femenil (Austin: Casa/Tejidos Publication, 1978), pp. 41-42, and Angela de Hoyos, "La Malinche a Cortez y viceversa," La Palabra 2 (Spring 1980), 69-70. Elizabeth Ordóñez, "Sexual Politics and the Theme of Sexuality in Chicana Poetry," in Women in Hispanic Literature , ed. Miller, gives examples, with commentary, of Chicanas who have attempted to reassess Marina in poetry (see esp. pp. 324-328). Also contributing to a reevaluation of Doña Marina's role as woman and cultural symbol in the conquest of Mexico are Adelaida R. del Castillo, "Malintzin Tenépal: A Preliminary Look into a New Perspective," in Essays on la mujer , ed. Sánchez and Martinez Cruz, pp. 124-149; Cordelia Candelaria, "La Malinche: Feminist Prototype," Frontiers 5 (Summer 1980), 1-6; and Phillips, "Marina / Malinche."

28. Both Phillips, "Marina / Malinche" (p. 114), and Candelaria, "La Malinche" (p. 3), speak of Marina's role as la lengua de los dioses ("the tongue of the gods," meaning the Spaniards).

29. Díaz del Castillo, The Conquest of New Spain , trans. J. M. Cohen (London: Penguin Books, 1963), p. 86.

30. Adelaida R. del Castillo, "Malintzin Tenépal," p. 143; Phillips, "Marina / Malinche," p. 111. break

31. Bernal Díaz del Castillo, Conquest , pp. 85-87.

32. Paz, Labyrinth , p. 86.

33. Brinson-Pineda, "Poets on Poetry," p. 6. The next two quotations are also taken from this interview.

34. "Romance Liso" and "Romance de la Niña" appear on pp. 114-117.

35. Here again I disagree with the Rodríguez-Nieto English translation. The Spanish fuego blanco is "white fire" at its most basic level. I therefore use "rose of white fire" instead of "rose of pale fire," which more accurately refers to rosa de fuego pálido .

36. I borrow the terms "abstract" and "coda" from William Labov and David Fanshel, Therapeutic Discourse (New York: Academic Press, 1977), p. 109.

37. The metaphor connecting the color black with tragedy is part of a long tradition, and has, I think, racist implications.

38. By rendering y al verla as "at the sight," the translator suggests that the metaphor of the sexual experience is intended as a rape. The phrase y al verla , however, does not mean "at the sight"; more simply, it means "and upon seeing her."

39. The English translation mistakenly interchanges the first and third stanzas of the coda.

40. Brinson-Pineda, "Poets on Poetry," p. 7. I cite Corpi's anecdote: "Once while translating a poem she [Rodríguez-Nieto] said that it wasn't right. I had written a mixture of colors that I intended to pass for brown. She told me "That's dirty water." Then she thought the poem should end before it actually did. I told her, "No, I want my poem as it is." She said, "Then I won't translate it." 'So don't translate it,' I answered. That poem has never been completed."

41. Examples are "De mi casa" ("My House"), pp. 36-39; "Protocolo de Verduras" ("The Protocol of Vegetables"), pp. 48-49; "Carta a Arturo" ("Letter to Arturo"), pp. 60-61; and "Romance Liso" ("Smooth Romance"), pp. 114-115.