- Peregrina (1986)
- Terms of Survival (1987)
- The Line of the Sun (1989)
- A Partial Remembrance of a Puerto Rican Childhood (1990)
- The Latin Deli (1993)
- Reaching for the Mainland and Selected New Poems (1995)
- An Island Like You: Stories of the Barrio (1996)
- Catch The Moon (1996)
- The Year of Our Revolution (1998)
- Sleeping with One Eye Open: Women Writers and the Art of Survival (1999)
- Woman in Front of the Sun: On Becoming A Writer (2000)
- The Meaning of Consuelo (2003)
- Call Me Maria (2004)
- American History
In 2005 she published her most recent book,
A Love Story Beginning in Spanish: Poems. Among Cofer's more well known essays are "The Story of My Body" and "The Myth of the Latin Woman," both reprinted in
The Latin Deli.