hed 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."