Gastronomic Discourse in Luz María Umpierre’s The Margarita Poems

A Puerto Rican who writes exclusively in Spanish intentionally writes to an audience largely inscribed in and informed by the effects of Spanish colonization, history, and culture. Likewise, one would have it that a Puerto Rican who writes exclusively in English rejects Spanish as a venerable mode of exchange and demonstrates a discursive alliance to American colonization and cultural ideology through linguistic choice. Still there are those who would condemn such simplistic declarations regarding the rigidity of linguistic boundaries in favor of an alternative position. A consumer of two linguistic realities, the Puerto Rican writer who transcends the intangible yet real gap that separates speakers of different tongues ideally represents this position. Demanding to be heard by an audience that will, like her, refuse to be confined by words, this writer turns to unique modes of expression, for example, the rhetoric of recipes and the discourse of diets. To be sure, as Margaret Atwood states, "Eating is our earliest metaphor, preceding our consciousness of gender difference, race, nationality and language" (2). The writer who occupies the space between Spanish and English cannot help but devour, regurgitate, and reformulate the words of both languages to convey a richer reality within discourse. (1) Luz Maria Umpierre is one such writer. Umpierre not only inhabits the domain of Spanish and English, but she also surpasses these to write in the language of food and drink, a semiotics that does not simply point to a literary motif in her writing, but to the larger question of cultural organization and power. The Margarita Poems function as an example of Umpierre's ability to use dietary discourse as a metaphor for the formation of a uniquely feminine mode of expression. (2) In crossing linguistic borders, she consumes and is consumed; she recognizes and is recognized. As Julia Alvarez observes, The Margarita Poems are "an invitation to all of us julias and margaritas who are stuck in our towers, our garrets and garitas, to come through the kitchen in la cocina of the poet and join our voices and populate that internal homeland" (6). In as much as this is true, alimentary references in Umpierre's writings, both Spanish and English, mark the space where women of all races, nationalities, and sexual preferences may meet to learn a recipe or two for how to break out of the authoritative confines of constructed, patriarchal, and isomorphic languages. References to bodily consumption and regurgitation abound in the nine works forming The Margarita Poems. The margarita, the common daisy, serves as a principal symbol of these allusions since it is both an "intoxicating drink," in Umpierre's words ("In Cycles" 1), and an edible flower. Yet while Umpierre prepares poetic dishes for wide consumption, she refuses to get lost in the dream of a melting pot of assimilation. Repeating the words of some recipe-hungry friends, the speaker of "Only The Hand That Stirs Knows What's In the Pot" recounts the following conversation: "I need to know the special ingredient in this tasty dip." "I have a prominent guest and need your flan recipe." One a man, the other a woman; both wanting my gist, my mysterious herb, my prescription. I don't deliver! (25) The anonymous individuals to whom the poet refers underscore the presence of a looming--dare one say American--assimilating force functioning to colonize the female poet. It seems the same nameless people who would boldly declare that they "need" to have the recipes for the medicinal dishes of the island are the same individuals who would colonize Puerto Rico, corrupt its culture, and separate the poet not only from her geographic homeland but also from herself and her inner, maternal language. These colonizers would like to see the speaker's plentiful "cornucopias" become sickening caldrons (23) as in the poem, "The Statue. …