Emplumada is Lorna Dee Cervantes€s first book, a collection of poems remarkable for their surface clarity, precision of image, and emotional urgency.  Rooted in her Chicana heritage, these poems illuminate the American experience of the last quarter century and, at a time when much of what is merely fashionable in American poetry is recondite and exclusive, Cervantes has the ability to speak to and for a large audience.