Call Me Maria

Poetry plays a vital role throughout Call Me María. The use of a poetic epigraph immediately establishes that the book will deal with the idea of becoming a poet; as the story unfolds, it is clear that poetry is a core element of María’s ongoing development as a person. Complicating the inclusion of poetry, however, is María’s navigation of the various languages that surround her. This struggle to gain fluency in multiple environments is a source of intellectual stress for her; she wants to be fluent in both English and Spanish in order to express herself well in any situation. Ortíz Cofer does not write the entire novel in verse, perhaps to play with the tension that María feels about her confidence as a poet. However, the novel pointedly begins and ends with poems, thus bookending María’s journey as a writer.

Toward the resolution of the novel, María receives feedback from her teacher that articulates Ortíz Cofer’s intentions in crafting a story about poetry. María describes her newfound motivation to write, stating, “Someone who needs to know if her world is too small to write about will hold my book in her hands and read my poemas elementales, and say yes, I can be a poet too” (105). In this statement, María defines her own voice as a poet: She can write about her world even if it feels “small,” and she can make poems about ordinary things just as Neruda did. Her connection to a future person who might see her poems and think that they “can be a poet too” is also a critical moment in María’s maturation (105), for she finally feels confident enough to write about her own life, in all the languages she knows, and this is an important theme that Ortiz Cofer wishes to convey to all young people.