Movements in Chicano Poetry

Interpreting specific poems by some of the best known Chicano writers, this book studies the central aesthetic and thematic concerns recent Chicano poetry addresses. Drawing on current theories of postmodernity and postcoloniality, it places a ‘minority’ literature within the central concerns of contemporary literary and cultural studies. The book addresses the most important issues related to Chicano identity, especially focusing on the contribution women writers and thinkers have made in articulating this identity. The study will thus be of interest to scholars specialising in feminist, cultural as well as Chicano/a studies.

• Locates Chicano poetry within a larger American cultural context rather than treating it as subcultural or marginal • Explains Chicano cultural concerns through a framework that takes into account recent postmodern and postcolonial theories • Provides close rhetorical readings of specific poetic texts, providing an introduction to major figures of contemporary Chicano poetry

1. Introduction: movements in a ‘minority’ literature; Part I: The Postcolonial: 2. Four or five worlds - Chicano: a literary criticism as postcolonial discourse; 3. From the homeland to the borderlands, the reformation of ‘Aztlán’; 4. Locality, locotes and the politics of displacement; Part II. The Postmodern: 5. Migratory readings: Chicana/o literary criticism and the postmodern; 6. Mythic ‘memory’ and cultural construction; 7. Mouthing off - polyglossia and radical mestizaje; Part III. Confluences: 8. Between worlds.