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 light-hearted tale for her young son, or offering odes to mortals, gods, goddesses, Castillo's poems are radiant with keen perception, wit, and urgency. 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". Sometimes erotic, often funny, this remarkable collection sounds the unmistakable voice of a "woman on fire -- and more worthy than stone".