My first collection: Una puertorriqueña en Penna came out of those years and the racism I experienced while being a graduate student at Bryn Mawr College. Some of the poems are also a defense of my Puerto Rican culture and language. It is sad to say that the poems were not accepted by a Latino publishing house at the time because I did not write "like a woman." In other words, I was supposed to write about flowers, gardening and domestic chores. This first anthology was amplified to be the final book, En el país de las maravillas, which my dearest Chicana sister, Norma Alarcón, agreed to publish as the first book from her established press: Third Woman. Third Woman Press gave me a platform from which to publish without pressure from the establishment on thematics. They also published my next two books: ...Y otras desgracias and The Margarita Poems. The day I received a hand written note from Maya Angelou, stating that she had read The Margarita Poems and I should consider her another Margarita, was a private moment of recognition.
Puerto Rican writer
Luz María "Luzma" Umpierre-Herrera (born in 1947) is a Puerto Rican human rights advocate, New-Humanist educator, poet, and scholar. Umpierre-Herrera works on the topics of activism and social equality, encompassing the immigrant experience, and bilingualism in the United States, and Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender (LGBT) issues. Umpierre has published ten poetry books and has had numerous essays published in academic journals.
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Alternative Names:
Luz Maria Umpierre
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Listening to or reading about Lesbian writers and their works does not make anyone of us less fearful of taboos, crossing gender lines or trespassing male/female hierarchies. On the contrary, I have felt more acceptance of my voice, writings and Self while working in jails for youths, cultural centers in barrios, or teaching Appalachian university students. Perhaps, in the midst of this essay, we should start questioning ourselves as to whose taboos we are talking about or referring to. I, for one, can say that our taboos in academia have provoked more emotional and career harm to me than those held by what we, as academicians, call the "others"-"theirs"-the street people, the illiterate, the white trash, youths in jails.