LibGuides: Creative Nonfiction (Course Guide / Lisa Heise): Judith Ortiz Cofer

Judith Ortiz Cofer Bio

Image Source: Judith Oritiz Cofer. University of Georgia Photographic Services. New Georgia Encyclopedia

Judith Ortiz Cofer
Judith Ortiz Cofer, a longtime resident of Georgia, was one of a number of Latina writers who rose to prominence during the 1980s and 1990s. Her stories about coming-of-age experiences in Puerto Rican communities outside of New York City and her poems and essays about cultural conflicts of immigrants to the U.S. mainland made Ortiz Cofer a leading literary interpreter of the U.S.–Puerto Rican experience. In 2010 she was inducted into the Georgia Writers Hall of Fame. | Acosta-Belen, Edna. "Judith Ortiz Cofer." New Georgia Encyclopedia, last modified May 4, 2021.
Judith Ortiz Cofer
Although Ortiz Cofer is best known for her works of creative nonfiction, she began her writing career with poetry, which she felt “contains the essence of language.” Ortiz Cofer’s work explores the rifts and gaps that arise between her split cultural heritages. Her early immersion in both Puerto Rican and American culture shaped her multi-genre approach, which includes works of fiction, prose, poetry, and sometimes a combination of the three. | Poetry Foundation (Website)

Notes for My Daughter on the Morning of a New Year (Poem)
"Mira, mira, our Spanish-speaking kin
are always saying, "Look and look again." It amuses us,
this insistence on seeing, even when they mean listen."
| Kenyon Review. Summer/Fall98, Vol. 20 Issue 3/4, p92. 2p. | MasterFILE Complete (EBSCO) (Library Database)
Salt and Ashes (Poem)
" I want to scream Cancer in a crowded theater. I want to see
the cancer cops. I'll yell Cancer, and someone will call
the emergency number, and they'll come for me. I'll be given
a sedative..."
| Atlanta Review, vol. 22, no. 1, fall-winter 2015, p. 22. | Literature Resource Center (Gale) (Library Database)
Las Muchachas
"So, they started calling us by our baby names and trying to make us their nenas again, offering to take us shopping and sharing their Vanidades magazines. We saw their fear, and we played up to it." | South Atlantic Review, vol. 82, no. 3, fall 2017, pp. 120+ | | Literature Resource Center (Gale) (Library Database)
The Sign
"Give us a sign," friend says, and for a second I am back in my childhood of rosaries, candles, and incense, kneeling next to Mother and Grandmother, who are pelting God with petitions: Por favor, Dios mo. Dame, Dame, Dame. They are asking Him to prove Himself through a sign: a healing, a stray husband's return, relief from their female burdens. " | The Southern Review, vol. 44, no. 1, winter 2008, pp. 13+ | Literature Resource Center (Gale ) (Library Database)