Chicana on Fire

Vibiana Aparicio-Chamberlin's illustrated poetry book, Chicana On Fire: Ignited by the 1970s East L.A. Chicano Protest Movement tells the story of the tumultuous 70s from her experience as an activist poet-artist and young Chicana mother born and raised in East Los Angeles. This collection of poems encompasses the author's experiences of over half a century, from the 1960s to the present. The book covers six chapters with over sixty poems. Each chapter opens with an original painting...
More Description

Vibiana Aparicio-Chamberlin's illustrated poetry book, Chicana On Fire: Ignited by the 1970s East L.A. Chicano Protest Movement tells the story of the tumultuous 70s from her experience as an activist poet-artist and young Chicana mother born and raised in East Los Angeles. This collection of poems encompasses the author's experiences of over half a century, from the 1960s to the present. The book covers six chapters with over sixty poems. Each chapter opens with an original painting by the author. The author, a warrior of the pen, began to share her written voice in 1973, as a featured poet of the festivales de flor y canto in Southern California. Her involvement in the Chicano Moratorium Anti-War Movement of the late 1960s, 70s, and in the present anti-war struggles sparked her activism and inspires her self-expression: thus, the genesis of Chicana on Fire. This poetry book represents a painting in words that poetically embodies the beauty, passion, and connection with her ancestry-emblematic of the author's visual art. Aparicio-Chamberlin's imagery of a persevering nopal, symbolically and pictorially permeates her verses - with its roots, nurturing pads, painful thorns, exotic flowers, and delicious tuna fruit. Her paintings in words stand for an unwavering desire to speak for justice. Although sometimes the flowers and songs do not overcome unhappiness or death, it is possible to see a dream within the poet's words: ancestry, roots, love, penca, sustenance, cactus flower, hope and care, tuna, thorns, strength, and passion. "The nopal cactus is a perfect symbol for my life as a mestiza, I use its botanical parts to introduce each of this book's chapters. Its surprising heart-shaped pencas cactus pads are surrounded with thorns. Chicanas are tough. Like the nopal, we are survivors. It turns lavender-red at its edges just like a heart on fire. My heart is full of fervor. Like the flaming penca, I am a Chicana poet on fire."