Cherrie Moraga is a terrific writer, and all of these plays are great. A couple of months ago I saw a staged reading of her play The Hungry Woman, and can't wait until it is published.

Oh my goodness!! This is an incredible ground-breaking book of awareness and consciousness. It was a must-read for anyone coming of age in the 1980's and it is still relevant today. I came on line to purchase it for a friend who had never seen it, and I am in shock that it is out of print, or even just out of stock (it's unclear which). The paperback is selling on ZBooks for $45. I'm confounded.

This collection of passionate poems shares life. Through her truthful depiction of moments, attitudes and world views often unheard, Forman shocks and provokes. With her gift of rhythm and tone, she rocks the reader as if to say 'it's O.K.' The collection is divided into four sections, each subsequent section drawing on themes from the prior. Contemporary and timeless, her poems are proof that the personal is universal. In "I Will Speak Genius to Myself," she skillfully explores the cause and effect of the rage that often burdens African Americans by describing the aftermath of an audition. She contrasts hope and potential against a harsh, grey cement reality. It ends spitefully and without resolution, like so many of life's truths. Far from grim, Forman also offers hope. In fact she tells the reader exactly where to find it. In "Up Sister," a woman finds a renewed belief in her ablility to go on when the voices of African American women harmonize to symbollically rescue her fallen soul. She says look at our history and all that we have endured; look to each other; to sisterhood; to the human spirit and the will to survive. Throughout the book, Forman reminds us that a part of the magic we possess as African Americans is our ability to find strength in each other and our ancestors. But the magic is not only ours, it is a part of the human soul that transcends race. The magic is love's transforming property that allows us to see beyond the postmodern context of grey cement, and into the souls of others, as well as our own. Reading this collection was a pleasure, thank you.

Moraga's LOVING IN THE WAR YEARS is a classic in Chicana literature indeed. However, the new edition just doesn't cut it. The new essays are interesting to read, but they are not as compelling as the original text. Definitely worth buying, but certainly disappointing as far as "updating" the book.

This is a classic text in Chicana Feminist literature and in Gender Studies. In the early 1980's, Moraga was at the forefront of feminist theory by U.S. Women of Color which attempted to put issues of racial and ethnic identity in dialogue with issues of feminism and sexuality. Moraga not only critiques the racial and ethnic oppression practiced by mainstrem society, but she bravely critiques the gender opression practiced within Chicano/a communities as well. A "must" for anyone interested in the intesection of race, gender, sexuality and culture. Her moving and brutally honest work brings together essays, stories and poems, both personal and analytical, in a collage that breaks down the barriers between genres as well as between political ideologies. A very powerful book.

It's only upon the third reading--slow and relaxed--of Cherrie Moraga's play that the tea has steeped long enough to reach full strength; my being able to appreciate the play as a bittersweet love story and not as a novelty act by a lesbian Chicana writer.

A teenaged Corky is reluctantly learning what it means to be a woman, the surrender of body to man (as in rape) following the resignation of will. Her evolution is Marisa, in love with the man in Amalia who manifests because Amalia refuses to accept Alejandro's real death. The much older Amalia is fundamentally heterosexual and eventually will forsake Marisa because of her nature. "The dick beats me every time," says Marisa, articulating early in the play her life's challenge in the fields of love.

The play works best if you read it as one long poem.

A voice of dissension! Moraga's Waiting in the Wings is drearily narcissistic, toggling between journal entries and narrative over her newborn's struggle for life as a premature infant. While Moraga's early work (Loving in the War Years) offered a radical and fresh vision of Chicanismo, her later work suffers from dogmatic tendencies. Waiting in the Wings serves as a paean to the importance of the author herself with no greater glory other than Moraga's own narrowly defined boundaries of self. The journal entries are particularly self-indulgent, with the author occasionally indulging in worst kind of eugenic planning as she documents the manner in which she conceived (literally, figuratively, and politically) her child. Less a guide to the meaning of Mexican American family and community than a primer for baby boomer selfishness writ large, in the life of their children. Certainly a must-read for her ouevre, but expect no magical enlightenment. Moraga writes here not from the position of outsider but insider, who can produce drivel and still receive accolades. Tiresome, in the final analysis.

Moraga's text is a thoughtful meditation on the dialectics of biology and social construction of gender, sexuality, and bodies. She offers very personal reflections on how her choice to bear a child disrupts societal expectations for lesbians and how her choice is also shaped by race & culture. Ultimately, she envisions her child and the ghosts of those who have passed on (her Mexican uncle who died of lung cancer as well as gay male friends who died of AIDS) surrounding him as well as those present as part of a larger community of familia and a future generation that is inclusive of racial-ethnic minorities and sexual minorities. Moraga's trajectory as a writer is fascinating to explore--I would recommend reading The Last Generation before this book, and then reading the new sections from Loving in the War Years afterward. I also would suggest keeping an eye out for Yvonne Yarbro-Bejarano's book on Moraga's work, being published by University of Texas Press.

This is a beautifully written and insightful memoir. Moraga communicates a deep love of self, family and community in this finely crafted volume. I was particularly inspired by the seamless way the recounting of her personal story addressed so many larger political and spiritual issues.(A better case for the honoring of queer famlies could not be made). More than this, however, Moraga is just an exceptionally gifted writer, and this book highlights her luminous talent. One poetic phrase follows another, until the reader is left with one of the most elegant memoirs out there. Read it, and experience a unique glimpse into the heart of her fiercely loving mother's heart.

Moraga's second anthology of essays, poems, and prose has its moments, especially in the fictional entries, which are humorous, generous, and touching. Ten years have passed between Moraga's groundbreaking (and breathtaking) debut, 1983's Loving in the War Years. During that time, she became arguably the most preeminent Chicana feminist writer outside of the academy. The Last Generation, while eagerly awaited, ultimately disappoints, primarily through Moraga's struggled reconstitution of Chicana/o cultural nationalism with a queer bent. The anthology's most touted essay, "Queer Aztlan," is a dangerously authoritarian return of the repressed. Moraga, who challenged the essential Chicano of the sixties, has dressed up that old bugaboo, the essential subject, in queer cloth and calls it une nouveaute. Mais, c'est pas ca. Moraga's Queer Aztlan, with its calls to blood and land, is chillingly reminiscent of mid-twentieth century fascism, a fact that has been overlooked by her historically myopic acolytes. Last Generation is the sepulchre under which a promising talent lies: the promise of Moraga's early visions of a radically transformed Chicanismo. In this volume, she offers us a different image of the transformed writer/activist. From outsider to insider, Moraga can now make the leap into the essentialism she once criticized. At many points polemic, always self-indulgent, Moraga's collection serves as an interesting barometer of the acceptance and mainstreaming of Chicana feminist discourse within the cultural nationalist frame, with a subsequent loss both of rhetorical power and political progressiveness. In light of this, and above all, this work needs to be read critically.