18 pages • 36 minutes read
The Latin Deli: An Ars Poetica
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Further Reading & Resources
Related Poems
“Ars Poetica” by Archibald MacLeish (1952)
Among the most famous ars poetica poems is that of Archibald MacLeish (1892-1982). An American modernist, MacLeish’s poem glorifies the art of poetry as its own transporting experience. This boundary-pushing work was published in his 1926 collection Streets in the Moon.
“Ars Poetica with Bacon” by Terrance Hayes (2016)
Contemporary American poet Terrance Hayes’s take on the ars poetica tradition centers on a family in crisis. The poem explores the deep hurt and intimacy between family members and how these formative experiences can generate poetry.
“Heroics” by Julia Alvarez (1982)
Dominican American writer Julia Alvarez is one of Cofer’s few contemporaries as a Latina who broke into the mainstream literary world. Resonant with Cofer’s work, “Heroics” describes women navigating their native cultures and new American customs. Alvarez illustrates this tension by contrasting the young women who read poetry and Vogue with their skeptical mothers back home.
“Small Shame Blues” by Dan Vera (2013)
Contemporary Cuban American poet Dan Vera explores the second-generation immigrant experience in “Small Shame Blues.” The speaker laments his ignorance of certain Spanish words when translating his poetry for his father.
Further Literary Resources
In 2010, Judith Ortiz Cofer, a professor at the University of Georgia for nearly 30 years, was invited into the Georgia Writers Hall of Fame, three years after retiring from teaching at the university level. This extensive biography captures the poet’s life and work, describing her experience as the only Puerto Rican in many of her own classes as a teenager when she moved to Georgia with her family from New Jersey. Cofer identified herself as a “Puerto Rican Georgia writer” who believed that “there are different ways to be a Georgian.” The article includes useful links to other biographical resources about the poet as well as a link to the Manuscripts Collection at the Hargrett Library at the University of Georgia, where Cofer’s personal papers are held.
“Puerto Rican Literature in Georgia? An Interview with Judith Ortiz Cofer” by Rafael Ocasio (1992)
This article originally appeared in the Volume 14, Issue 4 of the Kenyon Review. Ocasio’s questions to Cofer address her family background and relationships as well as Cofer’s experience with integration into American culture. She arrived from Puerto Rico when she was 2 years old. Additionally, Ocasio and Cofer discuss the influence of literature written in Spanish and the Nuyorican literary movement, as well as Cofer’s identity as both a Puerto Rican writer and a writer who closely identifies with the southern state of Georgia.
“Remembering Judith Ortiz Cofer” by Lisa Bayer (2017)
This fond remembrance of Judith Ortiz Cofer on the occasion of her death from cancer at her Georgia home in December 2016 appears on the news website of the University of Georgia Press. In a piece that is both deeply emotional and full of professional respect, Lisa Bayer writes of the poet’s personal and literary talents in a brief memorial.
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By Judith Ortiz Cofer
