This remarkable collection presents a kaleidoscopic vision--reflected in shimmering bits of poetry, fiction, fable, and essay--of growing up as seen through the eyes of her young female protagonists. The young heroines of this compelling collection discover family secrets, awaken to sensuality and finally learn that, even in America, the land of the free, there is always a price to be paid for love.
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Judith Ortiz Cofer's spirited multigenre collection includes poetry, myth, fiction, and essays from the viewpoint of young people coming of age in a troubling world. One of the major characters, Maria Elenita, follows her own curiosity and sense of adventure through awakening womanhood and the discovery of her sexual self. Her mother, according to Maria Elenita, decorated their home in "early Puerto Rican: a religious print in every room.... It came to be a symbol for me of our relationship in those days."
The matrilineal connection is revealed as both homeplace and battleground. The poem "Mamacita" describes mother as a prevailing presence who "hummed all day long / over the caboose kitchen" and "dragged her broom / across a lifetime of linoleum floors." On the other hand, in the essay "Vida," mother becomes controversy: "My mother started to complain about the little things Vida did, or did not do.... Mother was spreading her wings and getting ready to fight for exclusivity over her nest." The revolution depicted is part of the human condition, the rough change from child to adult, couched in the bright colors of the barrio. --Susan Swartwout
From Publishers Weekly
Returning to the territory covered in An Island Like You and Silent Dancing, Cofer further heightens her descriptions of barrio life with a pervasive current of sensuality and rebellion in this volume of poems and stories about growing up during the turbulent 1960s. Most of the stories are described in hindsight by narrator Mary Ellen, who is also known as Maria Elenita (however, readers may have trouble keeping track of the various narrators in the early stories?which are all told through first-person narration but from differing ages and perspectives). Caught between Hispanic and American lifestyles, and eager to break free of traditional Hispanic values, Mary Ellen is strongly attracted to things that are alien to her parents. Readers will likely relate to Mary Ellen's struggle for independence, her idealism and her need for answers, themes that Cofer carries through the entire collection. In "The Meaning of El Amor," for example, the narrator sneaks into a nightclub where her recently deceased father, "the Puerto Rican Romeo," moonlighted to find out why love causes so much suffering. Cofer's lyrical descriptions of how music and the Vietnam War fired Mary Ellen's youthful passions are affecting: "When she was deep into a song, Janis [Joplin] became beautiful. Her voice, hoarse and choked with pain, went right through my skin, and I began to understand the meaning of soul, el duende, in American music." Readers in the suggested age range may miss the most rewarding aspects of Cofer's work, but for mature teenagers, there is wisdom aplenty in this radiant collection. Ages 11-up.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.
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More About the Author
Critically acclaimed and widely published poet, novelist, and essayist Judith Ortiz Cofer knows that "words have the power to transform you and give you the power to shape your life. The minute you open your mouth, you have introduced yourself." Writing extensively about the experience of being Puerto Rican and her identity as a woman and writer in the U.S., she is a lauded Regents and Franklin Professor of Creative Writing at the University of Georgia where she teaches literature and creative writing.
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Year of our revolution is both nostalgic & eloquent,
This review is from: The Year of Our Revolution (Hardcover)
New Jersey Barrio young woman discovers her womanhood and sexual self through the time of the counter culture movement of the 1960s. Maria Elenita makes a stand against her Mother's traditional Puerto Rican/American upbringing, she refuses to decorate her room with angels and Saints, distaining what her parents loved and shocking her Mother. The poems, essays and recolections are beautifully written. Nostalgic for those who grew up in that time and in those circumstances and of interest to young women, particularly those of latino or hispanic background.
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