Lucha Corpi: 1945—: Poet, Novelist

Corpi also began writing poetry in 1970 as an outlet for her feelings following her divorce. "There was a need to articulate all the ambivalence, all the contradictions, all the sorrow and pain carried within me," she recalled to Ikas. Her first work, Fireflight: Three Latin American Poets, appeared in 1976 in a collection with the work of two other poets. The MultiCultural Review commented, "Among the themes explored in this volume are the challenges of crossing cultures and living with two languages, the role of women, political commitment, love, and death." In the critically praised "The Marina Poems," Corpi began to explore the roles of women throughout Mexican history. Corpi continued to examine these themes in Palabras de mediodia/Noon Words, published in 1980.

After an uncomfortable poetic silence following her first work, Corpi turned to prose to break the tension. She wrote her first story in English in 1984 and the same year she received first place in the University of California at Irvine's Chicano Literary Contest, for "Shadows of Ebbing Water." In 1989 she completed her first novel, Delia's Song. The novel tells the story of a woman who decides to leave home, attend college in California, and finally become a writer, mirroring many of the events in Corpi's own life. In 1990 she was honored with an art fellowship by the City of Oakland, and was named poet laureate of Indian University Northwest.