Language of the Flesh: Colonial Violence and Subversion in the Poetry of Judith Ortiz Cofer

One third of Puerto Rican women on the Island were reproductively sterilized by 1982, as a result of US colonial policy. US colonial narratives continue to render Puertorriqueñas vulnerable to this violence. Questions emerge regarding whether these narrative limit Puertorriqueñas’ experiences and potential and whether decolonial counter-narratives exist. This article argues that the creation of a “language of the flesh” within poetry can subvert US colonial narratives. A language of the flesh, born from “theory in the flesh,” communicates corporeal experiences through which coloniality manifests itself and can be resisted. Utilizing Decolonial Feminist theories, I distinguish between the “body,” as a concept within colonial narratives, and the flesh, where Latinas experience coloniality and constitute their own resilience. A language of the flesh is made possible within poetry via this genre’s “dusmic” capabilities. I argue that Judith Ortiz Cofer, in the poem “The Gift of a Knife,” produces a subversive narrative regarding la operación, as reproductive sterilization became known on the Island, to identify, delineate, and subvert the processes by which Puertorriqueñas are divested of their ability to refute colonial paradigms of gender. A language of the flesh emerges that renarrates history and produces a decolonial project of healing and empowerment.