Women Who Love Angels

In the poem “Women Who Love Angels” the author, Judith Ortiz Cofer conveys the theme of empowering women. She expresses this theme through the use of figurative language and poetic devices. Such as, allusion, alliteration, simile, and metaphor.
Judith Ortiz Cofer’s poem illustrates the significant lives that women lead without the inclusion of male presence. The use of a simile and a metaphor enriches the poem and its meaning. For example, the simile “ tilting their heads at a gracious angle as if listening to notes pitched above the human range”(Cofer 9-13) made the poem have a shift. Due to the words“as if ”, and this transition is from the poem being descriptive and realistic to a unrealistic and fantastical in tone. For example, the metaphor “ age makes them translucent” (Cofer 14) is for the women becoming less mysterious and secretive as they age. Also when it says “ their spirits shaking gently loose”(Cofer 18), it is a metaphor for the passion and life moving from the body of

With the devices Cofer is able to make these connotations visible. The allusion demonstrated with religious connotation has a correlation to the garden mentioned in the poem. The idea of having a garden could be an allusion to the Garden of Eden, which demonstrates the lack of “Adam” in these women’s lives. Alliteration was used as a way to provide a reminder in the poem. For example, “ Living out their long lives” (Cofer 2-3) and “they play their pianos in the late afternoon” (Cofer 7-8) emphasize the importance of details. The exaggeration of these lines helped convey that the women being spoken of in the poem are people with favorable lives and ideals which provides a positive connotation to the entirety of the piece. These poetic devices embody and exaggerate the detail of what is happening throughout the poem and its theme expressed by