Week 1. Woman Hollering Creek - Sandra Cisneros.

At the beginning of this week, when the sun was still shining, I sat in my garden and read Woman Hollering Creek by Sandra Cisneros, a Mexican-American writer. The work comprises of twenty-two short stories focusing on the lives of young Latina women, shaping their voices and identities. A strong feminist current runs through the stories; Cisneros shares an intimate view of the abuse many young women face and, sometimes, their escape from it. Cisneros, however, also reveals true warmth of love and sex, where young women’s hearts are free rather than caged. The Washington Post describes how Cisneros knows “both that the heart can be broken and that it can rise and soar like a bird” and nothing could summarise the core of these stories better. They are filled with themes of womanhood, love, suffering and beauty.

Reading Cisneros’ work, the lyricism seeped into my own environment. I began to notice how many hops the pigeon took on my fence (it was three) before it circled around the tree, landed (ungracefully) on the other side and plunged into the garden to collect a twig or two for its nest. A female blackbird (don’t be fooled by the name, they’re actually brown) whirred through the garden with the same mission. Once she’d collected her material she’d jump onto our sapling greengage and before it bent under her weight completely, she’d dive into the hedge. Where the pigeon’s movements were laboured, her’s were effortless. I liked watching the pigeon. I liked noticing things I had never bothered to notice about pigeons before. For me, great writing makes me more alert to my own environment and makes me want to take note of the details.

The title story, ‘Woman Hollering Creek’, is one about abuse, longing and eventual escape. Cleófilas is a young woman who marries Juan Pedro; a relationship that quickly turns from “happily ever after” to physical abuse. Cleófilas is stuck between the border and her husband’s hands — she longs to return to Mexico, to her father and her home but she is trapped by the exceptions of motherhood and the rumours that would circulate (“What a disgrace. What would the neighbours say? (…) Where’s your husband?”). Juan Pedro, her new husband, her happily-ever-after as the telenovelas had decreed — he is only a part of the system that perpetuates abuse, gaslighting and loneliness. He is the hand that slaps and the pair of lips that lies and begs for repentance before starting the cycle once more. The peculiarly named creek runs through the story reflecting Cleófilas’ state of mind. At first site, the name is a funny juxtaposition to the promised beauty of her new life but as the violence in her grows, the stream comes to embody La Llorona, the weeping woman. In Latin American folklore, La Llorona is the ghost of a woman who steals and drowns children; Cleófilas becomes sure that La Llorona quietly calls her as her baby plays with the grass around him. Only once Cleófilas escapes towards San Antonio in an American woman’s pick-up truck does the creek take on another form — the woman is no longer hollering with pain or grief or anger but with joyful freedom. Hollering like “Tarzan” instead of wailing like the shadow of a woman.

Other tales that particularly stood out to me were ‘Eleven’, ‘Little Miracles, Kept Promises’ and ‘Bien Pretty’. ‘Eleven’ shares wisdoms only an eleven year old could know — about age, the passing of time, the small cruelties of teachers (that can ruin a whole day) and what it really means to be eleven (that is, you’re never just eleven, “you’re also ten, and nine, and eight, and seven, and six, and five, and four, and three, and two, and one”). With the short story, ‘Little Miracles, Kept Promises’, Cisneros invites the reader into the confessions and notes of gratitudes offered to gods. Cisneros brilliantly crafts distinct characters and voices within these short segments. Their thanks, offerings and requests range from hilarious and heartwarming to tragic. The last story in the collection, ‘Bien Pretty’ is about a female artist who moves from San Antonio to Austin, Texas, and falls in love with a very pretty pest-controller. However, once this handsome pest-controller reveals the existence of his sons (“Four. From my first. Three from my second”) our artist redoes the painting he was modelling for. The prince and princess trade places — the prince now lies on his back instead of the princess. A suitably liberating ending to the stunning collection.