While reading “Kitchens” my senses were awakened. I felt as if I was sitting in her kitchen touching, tasting, smelling, and listening to her cook the foods of her homeland of the Caribbean. I visualized the women of her past sorting the beans. I could feel the smoothness of the beans just like running your hands through the huge bean bin at the supermarket. I could see the colors of the “green stain of cilantro” blending with the garlic and black pepper. I could almost smell the strong odor of the garlic as I heard the pounding of it in the pilon. My tongue watered from my imagination and my stomach growled.

This poem is written in the author’s point-of-view. I visualize her in this poem as a middle age or older adult. She is in her kitchen. It is in her kitchen where she feels a bond to her homeland. The overall meaning she expresses within the poem is connection. These connections are to her homeland, present home, ancestors, relatives, women, ethnicity, culture, and to the earth.

I feel very connected to this poem. Having grown up with many Hawaiian traditions I can relate to Levins- Morales’ connection to her past through her kitchen. The Hawaiian culture and Puerto Rican cultures share their own connections. They are both island cultures where friends are considered family and everyone is invited to take place in the celebration. Food plays an important role in gatherings. Everyone brings something and there is always plenty. Many of the foods are prepared fresh. They did not come prepared, frozen, or in a box. The foods eaten are the same foods that have been prepared for generations. They were prepared by the generations that were not American. They are the same foods our ancestors ate. Whenever we have a party or get together at my house my mom comments that she shouldn’t put chairs for people to sit in all over the house because they all end up in the kitchen. Our relatives like to congregate in the kitchen because that is where the action is. The smells and preparation of the celebration foods draws them in. The kitchen is the life of the party.

The rhythm of the poem is “the dance of the cocinera.” When I read this poem I saw it in my mind as a celebration dance. The celebration of the foods that bind people to who they are ethnically and culturally. The reader can visualize movement throughout the poem. The author uses words such as floating, flashing, oozing, grace, dancing, glitters, dripping, trickling, and tumbling. Each word establishes a different rhythm. The “knife blade flashing” gives the image of sharp slicing movements in contrast to the “pestle smashing the oozing mash” which gives the image of the foods blending with one another to become a new combination with it’s own distinct taste. She describes the blue flame of the stove as glittery. I imagine this as the blue glow of the campfire. Her images stir the imagination and breath life into the poem.

The main images of this poem are food and the preparation of the food of Levin Morals' homeland, Puerto Rico. While reading this poem the reader can smell, see, and hear the foods cooking in the kitchen. One can only wish they could taste them. Morales' uses imagery to show the connection between the food and the earth. She talks about how “the stain of the mancha and the subtle earthy green smell of sap that follows her, down from the mountains, into the cities.” The “mancha” is the stain of the banana, a Puerto Rican staple food. It is the stain of her culture and race the forever clings to her. She is describing how her island homeland stays with her no matter where she is.

I chose to analyze this poem beca use it is vibrant, colorful, and full of life. It has also given me a connection to my own heritage. I can relate to the tropical foods that are prepared and to the customs of island culture. I can also relate her descriptions of “the green and musty river of my grandmother” and “the mountain kitchens of my people.” Her descriptions could easily be used to describe the island of Kauai, where my relatives are from. This poem gave me a connection to my island culture just as Levins Morales had a connection Puerto Rico through her kitchen.