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THE LATIN DELI: PROSE & POETRY, by Judith Ortiz Cofer. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1993. xii + 170 pages. $19.95.
Judith Ortiz Cofer, author of fiction, poetry collections and essays, presents all three in her latest book, The Latin Deli. Some readers and reviewers might overlook the volume because of its eclecticism. (It might have escaped editorial notice in this journal, for instance, because about 60% of the volume is devoted to poetry and essays.) Others might ignore it because they incorrectly assume that its appeal is specifically "ethnic." The latter premise reminds me of a mid-Atlantic university administrator I knew whose office would not subscribe to the New York Times because "we don't care what's going on in New York." For the record, then, don't buy this book solely for the poems, solely for the stories, or solely for the essays; moreover, don't buy this book solely to read about the experiences of Puerto Rican characters in the continental US. Instead, buy this book for the profound, poignant, funny, universal and moving epiphanies between its covers.
Cofer's combination of essays and poems produces a sustained embroidery on the short stories (and vice versa). Indeed, the...