A Love Story Beginning In Spanish

Judith Ortiz Cofer's third volume of poetry collects thirty-four poems written over the course of many years. In places as stark as a New Jersey barrio or fabled as the island home of Penelope and Odysseus, the people in these poems sometimes resist, sometimes reconcile, multiple cultures, tongues, and traditions as they navigate over ever-changing landscapes.

Judith Ortiz Cofer is a Franklin Professor of English and Creative Writing at the University of Georgia.

Acknowledgments

ix

ONE: BEGINNING IN SPANISH

Beans: An Apologia for Not Loving to Cook

3

(2)

Before the Storm

5

(2)

Lessons of the Past

7

(2)

A Theory of Chaos: October 1962

9

(2)

Dominoes: A Meditation on the Game

11

(2)

from A Sailor's Wife's journal

13

(6)

Siempre

19

(2)

The Poet's Work

21

(1)

Here Is a Picture of Me

22

(1)

That Old Tune

23

(2)

First Job: The Southern Sweets Sandwich Shop and Bakery

25

(3)

Notes for My Daughter Studying Math on the Morning of a New Year

28

(2)

Where You Need to Go

30

(5)

TWO: EL AMOR, EL AZUL, A HIBISCUS

Rice: An Ars Poetica

35

(2)

The Superstition Poems

The Gift of a Knife

37

(1)

The Pleasures of Fear

38

(2)

The Lesson of the Tongue

40

(2)

La Fulana

42

(1)

Black Silk Shirt

43

(1)

The Arms of a Good Woman

44

(1)

Old Women in Their Rooms

45

(1)

The Cruel Season

46

(2)

Alms Outside the Package Store, Peachtree Street

48

(1)

I Give You the Hibiscus

49

(1)

Hispanic Barbie with Accessories

50

(2)

Bed-Making in a Foreign Country

52

(1)

Found Poem: Charm for the Love of a Woman

53

(1)

Saint, Hair, Water

54

(1)

The Art of Scrying: A Poem for My Birthday

55

(1)

The Calculus of Freedom

56

(1)

Seizing the Day

57

(1)

To Understand El Azul

58

(1)

The Names of the Dead: An Essay on the Phrase

59

(2)

Gifts

61

(6)

THREE: A LOVE STORY

El Amor: A Story Beginning in Spanish

67

(1)

About the Author

68

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A Love Story Beginning In Spanish

Summary

Author Biography

Table of Contents

Supplemental Materials