Cervantes? first book, Emplumada (University of Pittsburgh, 1981), a recipient of the American Book Award, was praised as ?a seamless collection of poems that move back and forth between the gulf of desire and possibility.? Her second collection, From the Cables of Genocide: Poems on Love and Hunger (Arte P?blico, 1991) was awarded the Patterson Poetry Prize, the poetry prize of the Institute of Latin American Writers, and the Latino Literature Award. In 1995 she received a Lila Wallace-Reader's Digest Writers' Award.