During her lifetime Gloria Fuertes achieved the status of a controversial cultural icon, both through her poetry for adults and through her poetry, recorded readings, and television programs for juveniles. This collection of lively essays, by authors who specialize in contemporary Spanish poetry, approaches the works of Gloria Fuertes from various theoretical and critical perspectives. In Her Words speaks to the inherent complexity of Gloria Fuertes's poetry, as manifested in its ultimate indeterminacy and undecidability, yet attest to this poet's abiding value as the voice of the marginalized-women, the poor, children, all the invisible members of society- who were silenced during the years of Spanish dictatorship under Franco.

During her lifetime, Gloria Fuertes achieved the status of a controversial cultural icon, both through her poetry for adults and through her poetry, recorded readings, and television programs for juveniles. This collection of lively essays, by authors who specialize in contemporary Spanish poetry, approaches the works of Gloria Fuertes from various theoretical and critical perspectives. In Her Words speaks to the inherent complexity of Gloria Fuertes's poetry, as manifested in its ultimate indeterminacy and undecidability, yet attests to this poet's abiding value as the voice of the marginalized-women, the poor, children, all the invisible members of society-who were silenced during the years of Spanish dictatorship under Franco. This book manifests the prescience of Fuertes's stands on a variety of social and cultural issues, from women's changing roles in society, gender and sexuality, identity within a society held captive by a dictatorial regime, to more universal themes such as love, justice, ethics, nature, and obsolete societal norms. In Her Words decisively addresses and ultimately rejects the Spanish cultural elite's inclination to disavow Fuertes's influence and reveals how her voice has shaped succeeding generations of Spanish poets and underscored the ubiquity of her verse in contemporary Spanish literature and culture. The subtlety and diversity of the essays included in this volume attest to the power of Gloria Fuertes's poetic creativity, her ability to appeal to a wide audience both in Spain and abroad, and her place in the contemporary Spanish poetic canon.

1 Acknowledgments
2 Prologue
Part 3 Part I: Identity
Chapter 4 Portraits of the Poet in the Poetry of Gloria Fuertes
Chapter 5 Gloria et al
Chapter 6 Gloria Fuertes: Self-Portraits of a Fertile Spinster
Chapter 7 Lesbian Identity: (Dis)appearing Act in the Poetry of Gloria Fuertes
Chapter 8 Gerontological Poetics in Gloria Fuertes's PosthumanousEs dificil ser feliz una tarde
Part 9 Part II. Discourse
Chapter 10 Hearing Voices: Transtextuality and Heteroglossia in Gloria Fuertes'sMujer de verso en pecho
Chapter 11 Community and the Privileging of Sound in the Poetry of Gloria Fuertes
Chapter 12 Poetic Forms and Ideology in the Poetry of Gloria Fuertes
Chapter 13 Gloria Fuertes's Counterhegemonic Dialogism: A Response toEl Nacional Catolicismo
Chapter 14 Gloria Fuertes's Vietnam War Poems: Revising the Elegiac Tradition
Chapter 15 Transcending Boundaries: Gloria Fuertes's Poetry for Children and/or Adults
Chapter 16 Toward an Ecofeminist Dialogics in the Poetry of Gloria Fuertes
Chapter 17 Reflections on Gloria Fuertes: Ethics and Community
18 Gloria Fuertes: Select Bibliography
19 Works Cited
20 Notes on Contributors