Nuyorican Poets Café

Last updated

Nuyorican Poets Café
Nuyorican Poets Cafe in Loisaida section of New York City.jpg
Nuyorican Poets Cafe building on East 3rd St. in Alphabet City
Nuyorican Poets Cafe
Address236 East 3rd Street
LocationNew York City
Coordinates 40°43′19″N73°58′54″W / 40.721951°N 73.9817816°W / 40.721951; -73.9817816
Public transit New York City Subway: F and <F> ​trains at Second Avenue
Opened1975 (1975)
Website
www.nuyorican.org

The Nuyorican Poets Cafe is a nonprofit organization in the Alphabet City neighborhood of Manhattan in New York City. It is a bastion of the Nuyorican (Puerto Rican New Yorker) art movement, and has become a forum for poetry, music, hip hop, video, visual arts, comedy, and theater. [1] Several events during the PEN World Voices festival are hosted at the cafe. [2]

Contents

The Café is meant to be a venue from which Nuyorican artists, poets, and playwrights take shared themes and messages of community, understanding, and the breaking down of arbitrary separators of color, among others, and spread them outside the environment of the Café. [3]

History

Founded c. 1973, the Nuyorican Poets Cafe began operating in the East Village apartment of writer, poet, and Rutgers University professor Miguel Algarín with assistance from co-founders Miguel Piñero, Bimbo Rivas, Pedro Pietri and Lucky Cienfuegos. [1] [4]

By 1975, the number of poets involved with the venture outgrew that space, so Algarín rented an Irish pub, the Sunshine Café on East 6th Street, and they named it "The Nuyorican Poets Cafe". During the mid-to-late 1970s, some of the featured poets included Miguel Algarín, Miguel Piñero, Pedro Pietri, Victor Hernández Cruz, Diane Burns, Tato Laviera, Piri Thomas, Jesús Papoleto Meléndez, Sandra María Esteves, and José Angel Figueroa. By 1980, the overflow of audiences led them to purchase their current building at 236 East 3rd Street so as to expand their activities and programs. The second wave of major Nuyorican Poets, featured at the cafe, emerged, including Nancy Mercado, Giannina Braschi, and Martín Espada.

The Nuyorican Poets Cafe counts poetry activists such as Bob Holman, Carl Hancock Rux, Saul Williams, Sarah Jones, Emanuel Xavier, and Beau Sia as former slammasters and was the home to the now mobile Nuyorican freestyle battle program Braggin' Rites.

The exterior walls are painted by a local artist "Chico" who has done neighborhood murals for decades. Above the entry doorway hangs Diana Gitesha Hernandez's acrylic painting. NuyoricanPoetsCafe.JPG
The exterior walls are painted by a local artist "Chico" who has done neighborhood murals for decades. Above the entry doorway hangs Diana Gitesha Hernandez's acrylic painting.

In explaining the philosophy of the venture, co-founder Algarín said: "We must listen to one another. We must respect one another's habits and we must share the truth and the integrity that the voice of the poet so generously provides." [1] [5]

In the 1990s a new group of Nuyorican poets and performing artists emerged to read at the cafe. In 2008, Daniel Gallant was appointed executive director.

In 2015, Carmen was the first full-length opera shown at the cafe, produced by IconoClassic Opera. [6] In 2024, the Nuyorican Poets Cafe announced a $24.1 million renovation of its venue, which was expected to be completed in 2026. The project would involve replacing the existing interiors with a new lobby, two theaters, dressing rooms, and classrooms. [7] [8]

The Open Room

The Open Room idea was the basis of the Cafe at its beginning. It was a space for poets and other kinds of artists to present their work to an audience. It has become a weekly event since at the Cafe, attracting all kinds of poets who sign up on a first come, first go basis. [3]

At some point in its early history, a Nuyorican chant emerged to precede the Open Room slam performances as a transition from the intense dancing present at the Cafe into a more quiet listening experience. [3]

The Open Room typifies the Cafe, its open-to-all attitude and accepting environment. Anyone can perform and the entirety of the Cafe is meant to listen. [3]

Nuyorican Poetry and Plays at the Café

Puerto Rican New York poets, precursing the Café itself (1964-1974), [9] were heavily involved in political conversation and the poetry coming from these individuals leading up to the founding of the Café dealt with capturing their own overlooked history. It broke poetic convention and centered upon examining the concepts of identity and representation. [9]

From 1982 to 1989, the Café was shut down but Nuyorican poetry continued through this time to become part of the foundation of a newly forming literary canon. This canon was that of Latin people in the United States. Publication increased both in the United States and Puerto Rico, and this poetry was studied as exemplary of multiculturalism's emerging effects on the formation of literary canons at a time when the question of multiculturalism was a preoccupation. [9]

Nuyorican poetry and plays are both considered a part of the cultural and intellectual Nuyorican movement. The Café was and is a place designed for the active performance of this poetry and these plays. Performance and active audience engagement with the work presented were important to the Café and its environment. The Café itself played large part in solidifying the Nuyorican movement and the performance element it emphasized reveals themes of visibility and voice. Before and while serving as co-director of the Café, Bob Holman heavily advocated for poetry slam nights at the Nuyorican. [10] He wanted the Café to be a community-oriented space and his own experience with slam poetry as oral, active, engaging, and connecting influenced this choice. Founder, Miguel Algarín, agreed to the suggestion. Slam poetry nights at the Nuyorican drew in large crowds and press soon followed. The Café and the Nuyorican movement works coming out of it began to reach a whole new audience. [10]

The works of Nuyorican poetry and plays coming from the Nuyorican Poets Café throughout its decades share themes, meanings, messages, and motifs. The historical context and social parameters around these have changed throughout the years but they've stayed essentially the same. These include questions of identity and belonging, tolerance and understanding, and visibility and representation. In a book collection of plays, those coming out of the Nuyorican Poets Café Theater Festival, edited by Algarín, he groups certain plays together. Algarín’s editorial categories include themes of inner city tragedy and politics, gender plays, and hip hop and rap. [11] These are big, essential themes also present in the larger Nuyorican movement.

Algarín also co-edited a similar book collection focused on Nuyorican poetry coming out of the Café. This collection is broken down into time periods. It tracks the thematic changes of Nuyorican works specifically in the 1990s and early 2000s. Nuyorican poetry of the 1990s era was focused on breaking down political, social, cultural, and racial boundaries between individuals and groups in the United States. The early 2000s for Nuyorican poetry was the time period when slam poetry took full root and the living, accessible nature of poetry was solidified. [3]

In 1994, Nuyorican Poets Cafe was the subject of a fourteen-minute documentary entitled Nuyorican Poets Cafe. Directed, produced, and edited by Ray Santisteban, the documentary features founder Miguel Algarín, along with Willie Perdomo, Ed Morales, Pedro Pietri, and Carmen Bardeguez Brown. Nuyorican Poets Cafe won "Best Documentary" at the 1995 New Latino Filmmaker's Festival in Los Angeles. [12]

Also in 1994, founder, Miguel Algarín, and poet and eventual co-director of the Café, Bob Holman, worked together to edit a collection of poetry originating from the Café. In this collection of Nuyorican poetry, Algarín makes a point that the main purpose of the Café and the poetry it has produced is to show poetry as the living art form it is, in his opinion, and understanding. It tracks the poetry coming out of the Café through the 1990s and early 2000s. [3]

In 1996, the Nuyorican Poets Cafe Poetry Slam Team was the subject of a feature-length documentary entitled SlamNation . Directed by Paul Devlin, the documentary follows Nuyorican poetry slam founder Bob Holman and the poets of the 1996 Nuyorican team (Saul Williams, Beau Sia, Jessica Care Moore and muMs da Schemer) as they compete in the 1996 National Poetry Slam held in Portland, Oregon. The documentary also features performances by Marc Smith, Taylor Mali, and Patricia Smith among others. [13]

In 1997, another collection was published. This one centered around more performance pieces: plays and monologues emerging from the Nuyorican Poets Café Theater Festival. This collection is organized to emphasis a few certain shared themes that define some part of the Nuyorican movement. [11]

The 1998 Spanglish novel Yo-Yo Boing! by Giannina Braschi features a dramatic scene of a Spanglish poetry reading at the Nuyorican Poets Café with founder Pedro Pietri who is also a character in the play United States of Banana. [14] [15]

León Ichaso's 2001 film Piñero features reenacted scenes of poetry readings by Miguel Piñero of “Seeking the Cause” and “A Lower East Side Poem”; at the end of the film, co-founders of the Nuyorican Poets Cafe and other prominent poets, including Miguel Algarín, Amiri Baraka, José-Angel Figueroa, and Pedro Pietri, lead a funeral procession and scatter Piñero's ashes on the streets of the Lower East Side. [15]

In 2018, a year after Hurricane Maria devastated Puerto Rico, PBS NewsHour featured a special on the diaspora reading at the Nuyorican Poets Café, entitled "After Hurricane Maria, Puerto Rican poets ask again what it means to belong". [16]

List of poets, artists, and musicians

Spoken word

Major voices in Nuyorican, Latino poetry, and other American contemporary poetry movements have performed at the Nuyorican Poets Cafe, including:

Music

In June 2002, Nuevo Flamenco guitarists Val Ramos opened for three-time Puerto Rican Grammy nominee Danny Rivera at the Nuyorican Poets Cafe. [1] The club also produces Latin Jazz, Reggaeton, Hip Hop, and Salsa events. Performers have included:

After a brief hiatus from music, MF Doom began performing open mic events at the Nuyorican under his new moniker.

Visual arts

The Nuyorican Poets Cafe produces exhibitions by local Latino artists, including:

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Nuyorican</span> Puerto Rican located in or around New York City

Nuyorican is a portmanteau word blending "New York" and "Puerto Rican", referring to Puerto Ricans located in or around New York City, their culture, or their descendants. This term is sometimes used for Puerto Ricans living in other areas in the Northeastern US Mainland outside New York State as well. The term is also used by Islander Puerto Ricans to differentiate those of Puerto Rican descent from the Puerto Rico–born.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Miguel Piñero</span> Puerto Rican writer (1946–1988)

Miguel Piñero was a Puerto Rican born American playwright, actor and co-founder of the Nuyorican Poets Café. He was a leading member of the Nuyorican literary movement.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Nuyorican movement</span> Cultural movement for Puerto Ricans living in or near New York City in the late 1960s / early 1970s

The Nuyorican movement is a cultural and intellectual movement involving poets, writers, musicians and artists who are Puerto Rican or of Puerto Rican descent, who live in or near New York City, and either call themselves or are known as Nuyoricans. It originated in the late 1960s and early 1970s in neighborhoods such as Loisaida, East Harlem, Williamsburg, and the South Bronx as a means to validate Puerto Rican experience in the United States, particularly for poor and working-class people who suffered from marginalization, ostracism, and discrimination.

Piri Thomas was a Puerto Rican-Cuban writer and poet whose memoir Down These Mean Streets became a best-seller.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Miguel Algarín</span> Puerto Rican poet (1941–2020)

Miguel Algarín Jr. was a Puerto Rican poet, writer, co-founder of the Nuyorican Poets Café, and a Rutgers University professor of English.

Edwin Torres is a Nuyorican performance poet. His work incorporates vocal and physical improvisation. He is the author of Ameriscopia, One Night: Poems for the Sleepy, Yes Thing No Thing, and several other poetic books. He also has produced recordings titled Oceano Rise, Novo, and Holy Kid. He is a member of the L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E school.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Puerto Rican literature</span> From oral story telling to its present-day

Puerto Rican literature is the body of literature produced by writers of Puerto Rican descent. It evolved from the art of oral storytelling. Written works by the indigenous inhabitants of Puerto Rico were originally prohibited and repressed by the Spanish colonial government.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Pedro Pietri</span> Puerto Rican writer (1944–2004)

Pedro Pietri was a Nuyorican poet and playwright and one of the co-founders of the Nuyorican Movement. He was considered by some as the poet laureate of the Nuyorican Movement.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bob Holman</span> American poet and poetry activist

Bob Holman is an American poet and poetry activist, most closely identified with the oral tradition, the spoken word, and poetry slam. As a promoter of poetry in many media, Holman has spent the last four decades working variously as an author, editor, publisher, performer, emcee of live events, director of theatrical productions, producer of films and television programs, record label executive, university professor, and archivist. He was described by Henry Louis Gates Jr. in The New Yorker as "the postmodern promoter who has done more to bring poetry to cafes and bars than anyone since Ferlinghetti."

Caridad de la Luz, a.k.a. "La Bruja", is a Nuyorican poet, playwright, actress and activist. She is considered one of the leading spoken word poets in the world. In 2005, El Diario La Prensa, the largest Spanish-language newspaper in New York City, named De la Luz as one of the "Fifty Most Distinguished Latinas in the United States".

Latin American poetry is the poetry written by Latin American authors. Latin American poetry is often written in Spanish, but is also composed in Portuguese, Mapuche, Nahuatl, Quechua, Mazatec, Zapotec, Ladino, English, and Spanglish. The unification of Indigenous and imperial cultures produced a unique and extraordinary body of literature in this region. Later with the introduction of African slaves to the new world, African traditions greatly influenced Latin American poetry. Many great works of poetry were written in the colonial and pre-colonial time periods, but it was in the 1960s that the world began to notice the poetry of Latin America. Through the modernismo movement, and the international success of Latin American authors, poetry from this region became increasingly influential.

Latino poetry is a branch of American poetry written by poets born or living in the United States who are of Latin American origin or descent and whose roots are tied to the Americas and their languages, cultures, and geography.

Giannina Braschi is a Puerto Rican poet, novelist, dramatist, and scholar. Her notable works include Empire of Dreams (1988), Yo-Yo Boing! (1998) and United States of Banana (2011).

Sandra María Esteves is a Latina poet and graphic artist. She was born and raised in the Bronx, New York, and is one of the founders of the Nuyorican poetry movement. She has published collections of poetry and has conducted literary programs at New York City Board of Education, the Caribbean Cultural Center, and El Museo del Barrio. Esteves has served as the executive director of the African Caribbean Poetry Theater. She is the author of Bluestown Mockinbird Mambo and Yerba Buena. She lives in the Bronx.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">American literature in Spanish</span> Spanish-language literature in the United States

American literature in Spanish in the United States dates back as 1610 when the Spanish explorer Gaspar Pérez de Villagrá published his epic poem Historia de Nuevo México. He was an early chronicler of the conquest of the Americas and a forerunner of Spanish-language literature in the United States given his focus on the American landscape and the customs of the people. However, it was not until the late 20th century that Spanish language literature written by Americans was regularly published in the United States.

<i>Yo-Yo Boing!</i> Spanglish book by Giannina Braschi

Yo-Yo Boing! (1998) is a postmodern novel in English, Spanish, and Spanglish by Puerto Rican author Giannina Braschi. The cross-genre work is a structural hybrid of poetry, political philosophy, musical, manifesto, treatise, memoir, and drama. The work addresses tensions between Anglo-American and Hispanic-American cultures in the United States.

Latino literature is literature written by people of Latin American ancestry, often but not always in English, most notably by Mexican Americans, Puerto Ricans, Cuban Americans, and Dominican Americans, many of whom were born in the United States. The origin of the term "Latino literature" dates back to the 1960s, during the Chicano Movement, which was a social and political movement by Mexican Americans seeking equal rights and representation. At the time, the term "Chicano literature" was used to describe the work of Mexican-American writers. As the movement expanded, the term "Latino" came into use to encompass writers of various Latin American backgrounds, including Mexican, Puerto Rican, Cuban, and others.

Empire of Dreams is a postmodern poetry epic by Puerto Rican author Giannina Braschi, who is considered "one of the most revolutionary voices in Latin American literature today".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jesús Papoleto Meléndez</span> American poet

Jesús Papoleto Meléndez, also known as "Papo", or "Papoleto", is a New York-born Puerto Rican poet, playwright, teacher, and activist. He is a member of the Nuyorican Movement. He grew up during the Civil Rights Movement, Black Power movement, and the emergence of the Nuyorican Movement in East Harlem. His titles include the play The Junkies Stole the Clock (1974), and Hey Yo/Yo Soy! 40 Years of Nuyorican Street Poetry.

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 "About the Nuyorican Poets Cafe".
  2. ↑ "Pen World Voices Festival 2018 to Convene Writers, Artists, And Thinkers", broadwayworld.com, March 28, 2018
  3. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Algarín, Miguel. Holman, Bob (1994). Aloud : voices from the Nuyorican Poets Cafe. H. Holt. OCLC   1024159553.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  4. ↑ "The Early Days of the Nuyorican Poets Cafe". The New York Times. December 6, 2018. Retrieved June 11, 2023.
  5. ↑ Stephens, Lannyl (September 18, 2018). "Hispanic Heritage Month: Celebrating Nuyorican Poets Cafe". Off the Grid. Village Presentation. Retrieved March 15, 2023.
  6. ↑ "Carmen: A Drinking Opera". The Village Voice . Retrieved October 9, 2015.
  7. ↑ Keleshian, Kristie (March 28, 2024). "Nuyorican Poets Cafe in New York's East Village begins $24.1 million renovation project". CBS New York. Retrieved March 30, 2024.
  8. ↑ Venugopal, Arun (March 30, 2024). "Nuyorican Poets Cafe, an East Village icon, begins a $24M makeover". Gothamist. Retrieved March 30, 2024.
  9. 1 2 3 Noel, Urayoán (2014). In Visible Movement: Nuyorican Poetry from the Sixties to Slam. Iowa City: University of Iowa Press. pp. 83–122.
  10. 1 2 Kane, Daniel (March 26, 2003). All Poets Welcome. University of California Press. doi:10.1525/9780520936430. ISBN   978-0-520-93643-0.
  11. 1 2 Hrsg., Algarin, Miguel (1997). Action the Nuyorican Poets Cafe theater festival ; [plays, monologues, and performance pieces from New York's most innovative performance space]. Simon & Schuster. ISBN   0-684-82611-9. OCLC   1071199386.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  12. ↑ "Ray Santisteban", profile at subcine.com
  13. ↑ "Slamnation: A Poetry Slam Documentary | Academy of American Poets".
  14. ↑ Stanchich, Maritza. "Bilingual Big Bang: Giannina Braschi’s Trilogy Levels the Spanish-English Playing Field." Poets, Philosophers, Lovers: On the Writings of Giannina Braschi
  15. 1 2 3 4 "Las Américas Quarterly | American Quarterly". www.americanquarterly.org.
  16. ↑ "nuyorican poets cafe". PBS NewsHour.
  17. ↑ Algarín, Miguel. Aloud: Voices from the Nuyorican Poets Cafe. Henry Holt.
  18. ↑ S., Sandhuv (June 2016). "Paul Beatty: SLAM Poet". The Guardian.
  19. ↑ "Amiri Baraka - "In Town @ the Nuyorican Poets Cafe" - Amiri Baraka". Google Arts & Culture. Retrieved October 10, 2020.
  20. ↑ Poets, Academy of American. "About Giannina Braschi | Academy of American Poets". poets.org. Retrieved October 10, 2020.
  21. ↑ "Sandra Maria Esteves". Poetry Foundation. October 14, 2021.
  22. 1 2 "8 Poets Disclose Their Favorite Lines". NBC Latino. April 4, 2013. Archived from the original on October 10, 2020. Retrieved October 10, 2020. Nuyorican poets
  23. ↑ "Willie Perdomo Revisited | Centro de Estudios Puertorriqueños". centropr-archive.hunter.cuny.edu. Retrieved August 25, 2022.
  24. ↑ "Playwright Ishmael Reed On Why He Thinks 'Hamilton' Is a Total Fraud". Observer. January 15, 2019. Retrieved October 10, 2020.
  25. ↑ "Miguel Algarín's 'High Art Of The Roaches And The Tenements'". The Village Voice. September 10, 2021.
  26. ↑ "Edwin Torres". Poetry Foundation. October 10, 2020. Retrieved October 10, 2020.
  27. ↑ "Zoraida Santiago and Related Topics". hyperleapsite. Retrieved August 25, 2022.
  28. ↑ "The Bronx Conexión Latin-Jazz Big Band at Nuyorican Poets Cafe". AQUILES NAVARRO. Retrieved August 25, 2022.
  29. ↑ Staff Writer. "'Spirit of Spain' at Barnstormers Theatre". Foster's Daily Democrat. Retrieved August 25, 2022.
  30. ↑ "Danny Wedding, PhD, awarded 2015 APA Presidential Citation". PsycEXTRA Dataset. 2015. doi:10.1037/e501352016-001 . Retrieved August 25, 2022.

Further reading

This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.