I Ask the Impossible: Poems

An Anchor Books Original

Cherished for her passionate fiction and exuberant essays,
the author hailed by Julia Alvarez as una storyteller de primera, and by Barbara
Kingsolver in The Los Angeles Times as impossible to resist, returns to her first
love-poetry-to reveal an unwavering commitment to social justice, and a fervent embrace
of the sensual world.

With the poems in I Ask the Impossible, Castillo celebrates
the strength that is a woman?buried deep in [her] heart. Whether memorializing
real-life heroines who have risked their lives for humanity, spinning a lighthearted
tale for her young son, or penning odes to mortals, gods, goddesses, Castillo’s poems
are eloquent and rich with insight. She shares over twelve years of poetic inspiration,
from her days as a writer who once wrote poems in a basement with no heat, through
the tenderness of motherhood and bitterness of loss, to the strength of love itself,
which can make the impossible a simple act. Radiant with keen perception, wit,
and urgency, sometimes erotic, often funny, this inspiring collection sounds the
unmistakable voice of a woman on fire and more worthy than stone.