"At three or four o'clock in the afternoon,
the hour of cafe con leche, the women of my family gathered in Mama's
living room to speak of important things and to tell stories for the
hundredth time, as if to each other, meant to be overheard by us young
girls, their daughters?"
This quotation comes from the beginning
of Silent Dancing: A Partial Remembrance of a Puerto Rican Childhood by
Judith Ortiz Cofer. Silent Dancing is a collection of semi-autobiographical
essays. In Cofer's own words, it is a collection of short pieces of "creative
non-fiction" (Ocasio 737). Ortiz Cofer defines herself primarily as an
artist. In her works, she explores what it means to be a writer in the
face of negotiating what it means to be a Puerto Rican, an American, and a
woman. Creating individual and community identities is a key aspect of
Ortiz Cofer's life as an author. She is interested in the creative process
and giving voice to the many characters in her life.
Judith Ortiz Cofer was born in
Hormingueros, Puerto Rico on February 24, 1952. Her mother was a young
bride and her father was in the US Navy. She spent her formative years
being shuttled between Puerto Rico and Paterson, New Jersey, where her
father was stationed. Anytime her father was on extended leave, Ortiz
Cofer and her family went back to "the island" to spend time in her
Grandmother's casa, house. In her Grandmother's, or Mama's, casa, she was
introduced to the many cuentos, or tales, of her family. These cuentos
provided Ortiz Cofer with her passion for storytelling.
Ortiz Cofer's mother tried hard to
maintain her island heritage; she always viewed herself as being in
temporary isolation when she found herself on the mainland. She held fast
to the traditions and family values she knew well. Ortiz Cofer's father,
on the other hand, thought that in order for his children to have the best
educational and career opportunities, he had to fight hard to disassociate
himself from his beloved island. He didn't want them to have the limited
choices that he perceived himself to have been faced with as a boy coming
into adulthood. These two opposing worldviews created a disconnect that
Ortiz Cofer attempts to resolve through her writing.
Ortiz Cofer was educated primarily in
the US, except for her first two years of school. Most of her primary and
all of her secondary education was completed in the States. Her formative
years were spent in public school; in the sixth grade, she entered a
private, Catholic school. After riots broke out in 1968, near their home
in Paterson, her family relocated to Georgia where she finished her last
two years of high school. She received her B.A in English at Augusta
College in 1974. She went on to receive her Masters in English at Florida
Atlantic University in 1977. During this time, she attended a graduate
summer program at the prestigious Oxford University where she was an
English Speaking Union of America Fellow.
Ortiz Cofer has been awarded national
fellowships and grants by the Fine Arts Council (1980), National Endowment
for the Arts (1989), the Witter Bynner Foundation (1988) and the Bread
Loaf Writers' Conference (1987). Her first novel, In the Line of the Sun,
was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize in 1989. Subsequently, the novel was
named one of the "Twenty-five most Memorable Books" of that same year. One
of her collections of poetry, Peregrina (1986), was a winning manuscript
in the Riverstone International Chapbook Competition. She has also won the
Pushcart Prize (1990), O. Henry Prize (1994), Anisfield Wolf Award (1994)
and Christ-Janner Award for Creative Research (1998), along with many
other awards and prizes. In the spring of 2001, she acted as a visiting
writer at Vanderbilt University.
It wasn't until Ortiz Cofer had
finished her Masters thesis that she really began to explore the
possibility of becoming a writer. During her extensive research, she found
herself overcome with the need to write a quick poem or story line on the
back of her index cards. Frustrated and disturbed by the idea that
something was missing from her life, she felt that these outbursts of
creativity brought her closer to understanding the crux of these feelings.
Ortiz Cofer states, "It wasn't until I traced this feeling to its source
that I discovered both the cause and answer to my frustration: I needed to
write" (The Latin Deli, 166). Shortly after, encouraged by a colleague,
she sent out a poem and it was published. Poetry is Ortiz Cofer's first
love, but she does not always adhere to its boundaries. She finds her
voice through the use of a variety of genres. Over the years, she has
created poems, essays, novels, short stories and works of creative non-fiction.
According to Ortiz Cofer, "The decision about genre is made when I sit
down and decide the parameters of what I'm writing" (Kallet, 75). Her
ability to move easily between genres mirrors her ability to adapt to her
sometimes conflicting surroundings.
She uses this ability, along with
explorations of language and memory, as tools to negotiate her own voice
in the literary world. The power of words to transform and create meaning
and identity are key themes that thread her works together. For Ortiz
Cofer, words and meaning are intrinsically entwined with memory. In the
beginning of Silent Dancing, Ortiz Cofer discusses the subjective nature
of memory and the importance of claiming memories in order to make them
your own. Ortiz Cofer uses the telling of her memories to represent an
aspect of identity that is transitional and that molds with its context.
Memory is dependent on the emotions of the individual during the process
of recollection. The juxtaposition of Ortiz Cofer's memories in Silent
Dancing provide insight to how Judith Ortiz Cofer defines herself.
Ortiz
Cofer's explorations of identity formations are not only found in the
context of her memories, but also exist in the spaces created between.
Again, she uses language to decipher these spaces. Although she spent most
of her childhood in the U.S., her home life acted as an anchor to her
Puerto Rican past. Her mother was vigilant in keeping their home a
microcosm of the island. Outside the home, Ortiz Cofer dealt in English,
yet within the home her language was Spanish. Ortiz Cofer remembers that
as a child, she often felt that neither language suited her. "I was
constantly made to feel like an oddball by my peers, who made fun of my
two-way accent: a Spanish accent when I spoke English; and, when I spoke
Spanish, I was told that I sounded like a 'Gringa'" (Silent Dancing 17).
Ortiz Cofer's two spoken languages never shed their inherent influence on
each other. Although she writes in English, Ortiz Cofer often intersperses
Spanish words throughout her texts, allowing the two languages to exist
simultaneously. She creates an inter- or trans-lingual reality
(Bruce-Novoa 94). Ortiz Cofer uses her writing to define herself in
relation to the spaces between the cultures in which she finds herself.
She draws on the power of language, genre, and memory to negotiate these
liminal spaces.
Another important aspect of Ortiz
Cofer's writing is her commitment to creating community. She not only uses
her writing to carve out her own sense of identity, she also attempts to
evoke similar responses in others. As she explains in Women in Front of
the Sun, she seeks to inspire and move her readers, "My poetry, my stories,
and my essays concern themselves with the coalescing of languages and
cultures into a vision that had meaning first of all for me; then, if I am
served well by my craft and the transformation occurs, it will also have
meaning for others as art" (Women in Front of the Sun 120).
Currently, Ortiz Cofer lives with her
husband, John Cofer, and has one daughter, Tanya. She is a Franklin
Professor of English and Creative Writing at the University of Georgia.
She continues to write and to receive high recognition for her work. She
also travels extensively around the country, appearing as a keynote
speaker or featured writer at a variety of institutions. Her novel The
Meaning of Consuelo is set to be released in November 2003.
Judith
Ortiz Cofer is the author of the forthcoming Call Me Maria, a young adult
novel; The Meaning of Consuelo, a novel; Woman in Front of the
Sun: On Becoming a Writer, a collection of essays; The Line of
the Sun, a novel; Silent Dancing, a collection of essays and
poetry; two books of poetry, Terms of Survival and Reaching
for the Mainland; and The Latin Deli: Prose and Poetry. Her
work has appeared in The Georgia Review, Kenyon Review,
Southern Review, Glamour and other journals. Her work has
been included in numerous textbooks and anthologies including: Best
American Essays 1991, The Norton Book of Women's Lives,
The Norton Introduction to Literature, The Norton Introduction to
Poetry, The Heath Anthology of American Literature, The
Pushcart Prize, and the O. Henry Prize Stories.
The Meaning of Consuelo was
selected as one of two winners of the 2003 Americas Award, sponsored by
the National Consortium of Latin American Studies Programs, for U.S.
published titles that authentically and engagingly portray Latin America,
the Caribbean, or Latinos in the United States. The novel was also
included on the New York Public Library's "Books for the Teen Age 2004
List." A PEN/Martha Albrand Special Citation in non-fiction was awarded
to Professor Cofer for Silent Dancing as well as the Anisfield
Wolf Book Award for The Latin Deli, and her work has been
selected for the Syndicated Fiction Project. She has received
fellowships from the NEA and the Witter Bynner Foundation for poetry. A
collection of short stories, An Island Like You: Stories of the
Barrio, was named a Best Book of the Year, 1995-96 by the American
Library Association. It was awarded the first Pura Belpre medal by
REFORMA of ALA in 1996. La linea del sol, the Spanish translation
by Elena Olazagasti-Segovia of The Line of the Sun, was published
in 1997 by the University of Puerto Rico Press. In 1998, The Year of
Our Revolution: New and Selected Stories and Poems was awarded a
Paterson Book Prize by the Poetry Center at Passaic County Community
College. The Spanish translation by Elena Olazagasti-Segovia of
Silent Dancing, Bailando en silencio was published by Arte
Publico Press in 1998.
She is
the 1998 recipient of the Christ-Janner Award in Creative Research from
the University of Georgia. The Rockerfeller Foundation awarded her a
residency at the Bellagio, Italy Conference Center in 1999. During
spring 2001, she was Vanderbilt University’s Gertrude and Harold S.
Vanderbilt Visiting Writer in Residence. Judith Ortiz Cofer is the
Franklin Professor of English at the University of Georgia.
(From Voices from the Gaps)
Works by the Author
| Acosta-Belen, Edna. A MELUS interview: Judith Ortiz Cofer. (Poetry
and Poetics), (Interview), MELUS 18.2 (Fall 1993): 83-98. |
| Acosta-Belen, Edna. The Literature of the Puerto Rican National
Minority in the United States. The Bilingual Review 5:1-2 (Jan.-Aug.
1978): 107-16. |
| Baker, Judy. The Unforgettable Images of Poet Judith Ortiz Cofer;
Her Life in Cuentos and Poems.(Essay) The Hispanic Outlook in Higher
Education 13.10 (24 February 2003): 29. |
| Bost, Suzanne. Transgressing Borders: Puerto Rican and Latina
Mestizaje. (Critical Essay). MELUS 25.2 (Summer 2001): 187-109. |
| Bruce-Novoa, Juan. Ritual in Judith Ortiz Cofer's The Line of the
Sun. (Journal Article).? Confluencia:? Revista Hispanica de Cultura y
Literatura 8.1 (Fall 1992): 61-69. |
| Bruce-Novoa, Juan. Judith Ortiz Cofer?s Rituals of Movement, (Critical
Essay). The Americas Review 19.3-4 (1991): 88-99. |
| Davis, Rocio G. Metanarrative in Ethnic Autobiography for Children:
Laurence Yep's The Lost Garden and Judith Ortiz Cofer's Silent Dancing.(Critical
Essay). MELUS 27.2 (Summer 2002): 139-158. |
| Fabre, Gloria. Liminality, In-Betweenness and Indeterminacy:? Notes
toward an Anthropological Reading? of Judith Ortiz Cofer's The Line of
the Sun."? (Journal Article). Annales du Centre de Recherches sur
l'Amerique Anglophone 18 (1993): 223-232. |
| Faymonville, Carmen. New Transnational Identities in Judith Ortiz
Cofer?s Autobiographical Fiction. (Critical Essay). MELUS 26.2 (Summer
2001): 129-157. |
| Faymonville, Carmen. "Motherland versus Daughterland in Judith Ortiz
Cofer's The Line of the Sun." (Book Article) The Immigrant Experience in
North American Literature: Carving Out a Niche. Editors Katherine B.
Payant and Toby Rose. 1999 |
| Grobman, Laurie. "The Cultural Past and Artistic Creation in Sandra
Cisneros' The House on Mango Street and Judith Ortiz Cofer's Silent
Dancing." (Journal Article). Confluencia: Revista Hispanica de Cultura y
Literatura 11.1 (Fall 1995): 42-29. |
| Kallet, Marilyn. "The Art of Not Forgetting: An Interview with
Judith Ortiz Cofer." (Interview) Prairie Schooner 68.4 (Winter 1994):
68-76. |
| Lee, Sarah. "A Contradiction in Terms: Athens Author Judith Ortiz
Cofer Celebrates Her Multi-Cultural Heritage." Athens Daily News /
Athens Banner Herald 26 November 2000: 1E. |
| Maldonado-DeOliveira, Debora. "The Flying Metaphor: Travel, Cultural
Memory, and Identity in Three Puerto Rican Texts." (Dissertation).
University of Rochester. Dept. of Modern Languages and Cultures, 2000.
|
| Ocasio, Rafael, "Puerto Rican Literature in Georgia: An interview
with Judith Ortiz Cofer." (Interview), The Kenyon Review 14.4 (Fall
1992): 43-51. |
| Ocasio, Rafael. "The infinite variety of the Puerto Rican reality:
an interview with Judith Ortiz Cofer." (Special Issue: Puerto Rican
Women Writers) (Interview) Callaloo 17.3 (Summer 1994): 730-742. |
| Piedra, Jose. "His and Her Panics." (Journal Article). Dispositio:
Revista Americana de Estudios Comparados y Culturales/American Journal
of Comparative and Cultural Studies 16.41 (1991): 71-93. |
| Rangil, Viviana. "Pro-Claiming a Space: The Poetry of Sandra
Cisneros and Judith Ortiz Cofer." (Critical Essay). Multicultural Review
9.3 (September 2000): 48-51; 54-55. |