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.
Languages
The work is most often written only in English and Spanish, with flourishes of
code-switching and
Spanglish
Spanglish (a portmanteau of the words "Spanish" and "English") is any language variety (such as a contact dialect, hybrid language, pidgin, or creole language) that results from conversationally combining Spanish and English. The term is mos ...
.
However, Latino poetry is also written in Portuguese and can include Nahuatl, Mayan, Huichol, Arawakan, and other indigenous languages related to the Latino experience.
The most prominent cultural groups that write Latino poetry are Mexican-Americans and
Chicanos
Chicano or Chicana is a chosen identity for many Mexican Americans in the United States. The label ''Chicano'' is sometimes used interchangeably with ''Mexican American'', although the terms have different meanings. While Mexican-American ident ...
, Puerto Ricans and
Nuyoricans, Cuban-Americans, Dominican-Americans, and Central Americans.
Notable Latino poets who write in Spanish,
Spanglish
Spanglish (a portmanteau of the words "Spanish" and "English") is any language variety (such as a contact dialect, hybrid language, pidgin, or creole language) that results from conversationally combining Spanish and English. The term is mos ...
, and English include
Miguel Algarin
-->
Miguel is a given name and surname, the Portuguese and Spanish form of the Hebrew name Michael. It may refer to:
Places
* Pedro Miguel, a parish in the municipality of Horta and the island of Faial in the Azores Islands
* São Miguel (disam ...
,
Giannina Braschi,
Carmen Boullosa
Carmen Boullosa (born September 4, 1954 in Mexico City, Mexico) is a Mexican poet, novelist and playwright. Her work focuses on the issues of feminism and gender roles within a Latin American context. It has been praised by a number of writers, i ...
,
Ana Castillo
Ana Castillo (born June 15, 1953) is a Chicana novelist, poet, short story writer, essayist, editor, playwright, translator and independent scholar. Considered one of the leading voices in Chicana experience, Castillo is known for her experiment ...
,
Sandra Cisneros,
Guillermo Gómez-Peña
Guillermo Gómez-Peña is a Mexican/Chicano performance artist, writer, activist, and educator. Gómez-Peña has created work in multiple media, including performance art, experimental radio, video, photography and installation art. His fifteen b ...
,
Pedro Pietri,
Miguel Piñero
Miguel Piñero (December 19, 1946 – June 16, 1988) was a playwright, actor and co-founder of the Nuyorican Poets Café. He was a leading member of the Nuyorican literary movement.
Early years
Piñero was born on December 19, 1946, in Gura ...
, and
Tato Laviera
Jesús Abraham "Tato" Laviera (September 5, 1950 – November 1, 2013) was a Latino poet and playwright in the United States. Born Jesús Laviera Sanches, in Santurce, Puerto Rico, he moved to New York City at the age of ten, with his family, to ...
.
Notable Latino poets who write primarily in English include
William Carlos Williams,
Martín Espada,
Sandra Maria Esteves
Sandra or SANDRA may refer to:
People
* Sandra (given name)
* Sandra (singer) (born 1962), German pop singer
* Margaretha Sandra (1629–1674), Dutch soldier
* Sandra (orangutan), who won the legal right to be defined as a "non-human person"
Pla ...
,
Cristina García, and
Jimmy Santiago Baca
Jimmy Santiago Baca (born January 2, 1952) is an American poet, memoirist, and screenwriter from New Mexico.
Early life and education
Baca was born in Santa Fe County, New Mexico, in 1952. Abandoned by his parents at the age of two, he lived ...
.
Themes and genres
Latino poetry explores a wide variety of personal, social justice, and historical issues, spanning themes of love, death, language, family, and history,
as well as discussing real-life events like
immigration restrictions,
human rights
Human rights are Morality, moral principles or Social norm, normsJames Nickel, with assistance from Thomas Pogge, M.B.E. Smith, and Leif Wenar, 13 December 2013, Stanford Encyclopedia of PhilosophyHuman Rights Retrieved 14 August 2014 for ce ...
,
DACA
Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, colloquially referred to as DACA, is a United States immigration policy that allows some individuals with unlawful presence in the United States after being brought to the country as children to receive a ...
, and
DREAMers
Dreamers or The Dreamers may refer to:
Books
* "Dreamers", a 1918 war poem by Siegfried Sassoon
* "The Dreamers" (play), a 1982 play by Jack Davis
* ''The Dreamers'' (novel series), a 2003–06 fantasy series by David Eddings and Leigh Eddings ...
.
Borders are a prevalent theme of Latino poetry. Their genres are widely varied, spanning
epic poetry
An epic poem, or simply an epic, is a lengthy narrative poem typically about the extraordinary deeds of extraordinary characters who, in dealings with gods or other superhuman forces, gave shape to the mortal universe for their descendants.
...
,
prose poetry
Prose poetry is poetry written in prose form instead of verse form, while preserving poetic qualities such as heightened imagery, parataxis, and emotional effects.
Characteristics
Prose poetry is written as prose, without the line breaks associ ...
,
narrative poetry
Narrative poetry is a form of poetry that tells a story, often using the voices of both a narrator and characters; the entire story is usually written in metered verse. Narrative poems do not need rhyme. The poems that make up this genre may be s ...
,
lyric poems
Modern lyric poetry is a formal type of poetry which expresses personal emotions or feelings, typically spoken in the first person.
It is not equivalent to song lyrics, though song lyrics are often in the lyric mode, and it is also ''not'' equi ...
,
hip hop, rap,
reggaeton, and experimental and bilingual formats.
Major works
William Carlos Williams (whose English father was raised in the
Dominican Republic
The Dominican Republic ( ; es, República Dominicana, ) is a country located on the island of Hispaniola in the Greater Antilles archipelago of the Caribbean region. It occupies the eastern five-eighths of the island, which it shares wit ...
, and whose his mother was from
Mayagüez, Puerto Rico
Mayagüez (, ) is a city and the eighth-largest municipality in Puerto Rico. It was founded as Nuestra Señora de la Candelaria de Mayagüez, and is also known as ''La Sultana del Oeste'' (The Sultaness of the West), ''Ciudad de las Aguas Pura ...
.) wrote the poetry
epic
Epic commonly refers to:
* Epic poetry, a long narrative poem celebrating heroic deeds and events significant to a culture or nation
* Epic film, a genre of film with heroic elements
Epic or EPIC may also refer to:
Arts, entertainment, and medi ...
Paterson from 1946 to 1958.
He is associated with the American
modernism
Modernism is both a philosophy, philosophical and arts movement that arose from broad transformations in Western world, Western society during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The movement reflected a desire for the creation of new fo ...
and
imagism
Imagism was a movement in early-20th-century Anglo-American poetry that favored precision of imagery and clear, sharp language. It is considered to be the first organized modernist literary movement in the English language. Imagism is sometim ...
.
With the goal of expanding American audiences for literature written in Spanish, Williams and José Vázquez-Amaral translated Spanish and
Latin American literature
Latin American literature consists of the oral and written literature of Latin America in several languages, particularly in Spanish, Portuguese, and the indigenous languages of the Americas. It rose to particular prominence globally during the ...
together, including Figueredo’s “Naked”;
Pablo Neruda
Ricardo Eliécer Neftalí Reyes Basoalto (12 July 1904 – 23 September 1973), better known by his pen name and, later, legal name Pablo Neruda (; ), was a Chilean poet-diplomat and politician who won the 1971 Nobel Prize in Literature. Nerud ...
’s “Ode to Laziness”; and
Silvina Ocampo
Silvina Ocampo (28 July 1903 – 14 December 1993) was an Argentine short story writer, poet, and artist. Ocampo's friend and collaborator Jorge Luis Borges called Ocampo "one of the greatest poets in the Spanish language, whether on this side o ...
’s “The Infinite Horses.” Williams also translated ''The Dog and the Fever'', a
novella
A novella is a narrative prose fiction whose length is shorter than most novels, but longer than most short stories. The English word ''novella'' derives from the Italian ''novella'' meaning a short story related to true (or apparently so) facts ...
by
Pedro Espinosa.
Among the major Latino
lyric poets
Lyric may refer to:
* Lyrics, the words, often in verse form, which are sung, usually to a melody, and constitute the semantic content of a song
* Lyric poetry is a form of poetry that expresses a subjective, personal point of view
* Lyric, from t ...
writing today are
MacArthur Award
The MacArthur Fellows Program, also known as the MacArthur Fellowship and commonly but unofficially known as the "Genius Grant", is a prize awarded annually by the MacArthur Foundation, John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation typically to ...
winner
Sandra Cisneros (author of the American Book Award–winning novel ''The House on Mango Street'') and
Richard Blanco
Richard Blanco (born February 15, 1968) is an American poet, public speaker, author and civil engineer. He is the fifth poet to read at a United States presidential inauguration, having read the poem " One Today" for Barack Obama's second in ...
, whom
Barack Obama
Barack Hussein Obama II ( ; born August 4, 1961) is an American politician who served as the 44th president of the United States from 2009 to 2017. A member of the Democratic Party, Obama was the first African-American president of the U ...
selected to write his
Presidential inauguration A presidential inauguration is a ceremonial event centered on the formal transition of a new president into office, usually in democracies where this official has been elected. Frequently, this involves the swearing of an oath of office.
Examples o ...
poem. In ''How to Love a Country'',
Blanco, born of Cuban exiles, writes in a mix of English and Spanish about the trauma of immigration and exile, especially for those whose lives are entwined in
DACA
Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, colloquially referred to as DACA, is a United States immigration policy that allows some individuals with unlawful presence in the United States after being brought to the country as children to receive a ...
or who live as
DREAMers
Dreamers or The Dreamers may refer to:
Books
* "Dreamers", a 1918 war poem by Siegfried Sassoon
* "The Dreamers" (play), a 1982 play by Jack Davis
* ''The Dreamers'' (novel series), a 2003–06 fantasy series by David Eddings and Leigh Eddings ...
.
Latino poets who use
dramatic poetry
Verse drama is any drama written significantly in verse (that is: with line endings) to be performed by an actor before an audience. Although verse drama does not need to be ''primarily'' in verse to be considered verse drama, significant portio ...
in an epic work include
Lin-Manuel Miranda, the creator of the
Broadway musicals ''
In the Heights'' (2008) and
''Hamilton'' (2015), which has rhyming couplets throughout the historical play, often multiple couplets within a single line of verse. ''Hamilton'' is widely used to teach poetry in classrooms. Another dramatic Latino poet is
Giannina Braschi, who writes
epic poetry
An epic poem, or simply an epic, is a lengthy narrative poem typically about the extraordinary deeds of extraordinary characters who, in dealings with gods or other superhuman forces, gave shape to the mortal universe for their descendants.
...
that embeds dramatic, lyrical, and prose poems into
lyric essay
Lyric Essay is a literary hybrid that combines elements of poetry, essay, and memoir. The lyric essay is a relatively new form of creative nonfiction.
John D’Agata and Deborah Tall published a definition of the lyric essay in the ''Seneca Rev ...
s,
political manifestos, and short stories. Braschi's
cross-genre poetry works include
''Empire of Dreams'' (1994), the
Spanglish
Spanglish (a portmanteau of the words "Spanish" and "English") is any language variety (such as a contact dialect, hybrid language, pidgin, or creole language) that results from conversationally combining Spanish and English. The term is mos ...
classic ''
Yo-Yo Boing!'' (1998), and the geopolitical comic-tragedy ''
United States of Banana
''United States of Banana'' (2011) is a postmodern allegorical novel by the Puerto Rican author Giannina Braschi. It is a cross-genre work that blends experimental theatre, prose poetry, short story, and political philosophy with a manifesto on ...
'' (2011) about the collapse of the American empire and the distribution of American passports to all Latin Americans.
Other important works of poetry on American
immigration
Immigration is the international movement of people to a destination country of which they are not natives or where they do not possess citizenship in order to settle as permanent residents or naturalized citizens. Commuters, tourists, and ...
and the
Mexican border include ''187 Reasons Mexicanos Can’t Cross the Border: Undocuments (1971-2007)'' and ''Border-Crosser with a Lamborghini Dream'' (1999) by
Juan Felipe Herrera.
History
During the
civil rights movements
Civil rights movements are a worldwide series of political movements for equality before the law, that peaked in the 1960s. In many situations they have been characterized by nonviolent protests, or have taken the form of campaigns of civil ...
of the 1960s and 1970s, Latino poets, artists, and activists formed bilingual literary journals, magazines, publishing houses, and cultural centers to disseminate their poetry, honor their cultural legacies, and advance social justice for Latino communities.
Until they created their own publishing venues their works were not available. Examples of Latino founded early publishing platforms include: the performance venue
Nuyorican Poets Cafe (1973); magazines such as ''Corazon De Aztlán'' (1972), ''Revista Chicano-Riqueña'' (1973),
and ''Chiricú'' (1976); and independent publishing house
Arte Publico Press
Arte (; (), sometimes stylized in lowercase or uppercase in its logo) is a European public service channel dedicated to culture.
It is made up of three separate companies: the Strasbourg-based European Economic Interest Grouping ARTE, pl ...
(1979), which brought bilingual authors such as
Sandra Cisneros,
Miguel Piñero
Miguel Piñero (December 19, 1946 – June 16, 1988) was a playwright, actor and co-founder of the Nuyorican Poets Café. He was a leading member of the Nuyorican literary movement.
Early years
Piñero was born on December 19, 1946, in Gura ...
,
Pat Mora, and
Nicholasa Mohr
Nicholasa Mohr (born November 1, 1938) is one of the best known Nuyorican writers, born in the United States to Puerto Rican parents. In 1973, she became the first Nuyorican woman in the 20th century to have her literary works published by the maj ...
into the mainstream.
It was not until 2012 that a Latino,
Juan Felipe Herrera, the son of migrant workers from Mexico, served as
poet laureate of the United States. Several Latino poets have since been elected to mainstream American poetry institutions such as the
Poetry Society of America (onto whose board
Rigoberto Gonzalez
''Rigoberto'' is a 1945 Argentine comedy film
A comedy film is a category of film which emphasizes humor. These films are designed to make the audience laugh through amusement. Films in this style traditionally have a happy ending (black c ...
was elected) and the
Academy of American Poets (in which
Alberto Rios was elected as Chancellor). However, Latino and other nonwhite poets, especially women, remain underrepresented in
National Poetry Month National Poetry Month, a celebration of poetry which takes place each April, was introduced in 1996 and is organized by the Academy of American Poets as a way to increase awareness and appreciation of poetry in the United States. The Academy of Amer ...
and other mainstream American poetry organizations in the United States.
However, there are many scholarly forums for the dissemination of research and teaching methods related to Latino poetry. Since 1968, there are many institutes and programs in colleges and universities throughout the United States that teach Latino literature as a counter-narrative to classes deemed "Eurocentric." In addition, the largest language and academic literary associations feature post-graduate level panels and events on developments in Latino poetry, such as the
Modern Language Association
The Modern Language Association of America, often referred to as the Modern Language Association (MLA), is widely considered the principal professional association in the United States for scholars of language and literature. The MLA aims to "st ...
,
Latin American Studies Association,
American Comparative Literature Association, and the
American Literature Association
The American Literature Association (ALA) is "a coalition of societies devoted to the study of American authors". It has some 110 affiliated societies, mostly concerned with the work of a particular author (e.g. the Emily Dickinson International ...
, among others.
Latino poets in the United States
*
Elizabeth Acevedo
*
Julia Alvarez
Julia Alvarez (born March 27, 1950) is an American New Formalist poet, novelist, and essayist. She rose to prominence with the novels ''How the García Girls Lost Their Accents'' (1991), '' In the Time of the Butterflies'' (1994), and ''Yo!'' ...
*
Marjorie Agosin
Marjorie is a female given name derived from Margaret, which means pearl. It can also be spelled as Margery or Marjory. Marjorie is a medieval variant of Margery, influenced by the name of the herb marjoram. It came into English from the Old Frenc ...
*
Francisco X. Alarcon
*
Richard Blanco
Richard Blanco (born February 15, 1968) is an American poet, public speaker, author and civil engineer. He is the fifth poet to read at a United States presidential inauguration, having read the poem " One Today" for Barack Obama's second in ...
*
Giannina Braschi
*
Carmen Boullosa
Carmen Boullosa (born September 4, 1954 in Mexico City, Mexico) is a Mexican poet, novelist and playwright. Her work focuses on the issues of feminism and gender roles within a Latin American context. It has been praised by a number of writers, i ...
*
Ana Castillo
Ana Castillo (born June 15, 1953) is a Chicana novelist, poet, short story writer, essayist, editor, playwright, translator and independent scholar. Considered one of the leading voices in Chicana experience, Castillo is known for her experiment ...
*
Sandra Cisneros
*
Cynthia Cruz
Cynthia Cruz is a contemporary American poet living in Brooklyn, NY. She is the author of six published poetry collections, and two works of cultural criticism. She currently teaches classes in the Graduate Writing Program at Columbia University. ...
*
Lorna Dee Cervantes
Lorna Dee Cervantes (born August 6, 1954) is an American poet and activist, who is considered one of the greatest figures in Chicano poetry. She has been described by Alurista, as "probably the best Chicana poet active today."
Early life
Cer ...
*
Martin Espada Martin may refer to:
Places
* Martin City (disambiguation)
* Martin County (disambiguation)
* Martin Township (disambiguation)
Antarctica
* Martin Peninsula, Marie Byrd Land
* Port Martin, Adelie Land
* Point Martin, South Orkney Islands
Austral ...
*
Guillermo Gómez-Peña
Guillermo Gómez-Peña is a Mexican/Chicano performance artist, writer, activist, and educator. Gómez-Peña has created work in multiple media, including performance art, experimental radio, video, photography and installation art. His fifteen b ...
*
José B. González
*
Rigoberto González
Rigoberto González (born July 18, 1970) is an American writer and book critic. He is an editor and author of poetry, fiction, nonfiction, and bilingual children's books, and self-identifies in his writing as a gay Chicano. His most recent projec ...
*Alberto Baltazar Urista (
Alurista
Alberto Baltazar Urista Heredia (born August 8, 1947), better known by his nom de plume Alurista, is a Chicano poet and Activism, activist.
Early life and education
Urista was born in Mexico City and attended primary school in Morelos. He went to ...
)
*
Juan Felipe Herrera
*
Ada Limon
Ada may refer to:
Places
Africa
* Ada Foah, a town in Ghana
* Ada (Ghana parliament constituency)
* Ada, Osun, a town in Nigeria
Asia
* Ada, Urmia, a village in West Azerbaijan Province, Iran
* Ada, Karaman, a village in Karaman Province, Tur ...
*
Carmen Maria Machado
''Carmen'' () is an opera in four acts by the French composer Georges Bizet. The libretto was written by Henri Meilhac and Ludovic Halévy, based on the Carmen (novella), novella of the same title by Prosper Mérimée. The opera was first perfo ...
* Lupe Mendez
*
Lin-Manuel Miranda
*
Urayoán Noel
Urayoán Noel is a translator, poet, and critic who is the author of poetry collections, poetry criticism and books. He has received fellowships from the Ford Foundation, the Bronx Council on the Arts, the Howard Foundation, and CantoMundo (whe ...
*
Carlos Pintado
Carlos Pintado (born 1974 in Cuba) is a Cuban–American writer, playwright and award-winning poet who immigrated to the United States in the early 90s. He received the prestigious 2014 Paz Prize for Poetry for his book '' Nine coins/Nueve Moned ...
*
Jesús Papoleto Meléndez
Jesús Papoleto Meléndez, also known as "Papo", or "Papoleto", (born June 13, 1950) 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, ...
*
Ruben Quesada
Ruben Quesada, Ph.D., is an American poet and critic. He was born and raised in Los Angeles, California.
In 2022, Dr. Quesada published an edited collection of essays, ''Latinx Poetics: Essays on the Art of Poetry'' was be published by University ...
*
Alberto Rios
*
Jimmy Santiago Baca
Jimmy Santiago Baca (born January 2, 1952) is an American poet, memoirist, and screenwriter from New Mexico.
Early life and education
Baca was born in Santa Fe County, New Mexico, in 1952. Abandoned by his parents at the age of two, he lived ...
*
Gary Soto
*
Virgil Suarez
Publius Vergilius Maro (; traditional dates 15 October 7021 September 19 BC), usually called Virgil or Vergil ( ) in English, was an ancient Roman poet of the Augustan period. He composed three of the most famous poems in Latin literature: th ...
*
Luís Alberto Urrea
Luis Alberto Urrea (born August 20, 1955 in Tijuana, Mexico) is a Mexican-American poet, novelist, and essayist.
Life
Luis Urrea is the son of Alberto Urrea Murray, of Rosario, Sinaloa, Mexico and Phyllis Dashiell, born in Staten Island, New Yor ...
*
William Carlos Williams
See also
*
Chicano poetry Chicano poetry is a branch of American literature, and specifically Mexican-American literature, written by and primarily about Mexican Americans and the many Mexican-American ways of life in U.S. society. The term "Chicano" is a political and cultu ...
*
Caribbean poetry
*
Nuyorican
*
American literature in Spanish
American literature written 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'' (History of New Mexico). He was an early chronicler of the c ...
*
List of Mexican American writers
The following is a list of Mexican-American writers.
A-C
*Oscar Zeta Acosta
* José Acosta Torres, author of collection ''Cachito Mía'' (1973)Marc Zimmerman, ''U.S. Latino Literature: An Essay and Annotated Bibliography'', MARCH/Abrazo, 1992.
...
*
List of Cuban American writers
*
List of Puerto Rican writers
*
Latino studies
References
Further reading
* ''
The FSG Book of Twentieth Century Latin American Poetry
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 unific ...
(on'' the history of Latin American and Latino/a poetry). (2011). []
* ''The Norton Anthology of Latino Literature'', a 2,700-page compendium that includes two hundred authors from the colonial period to 21st century Latinx poets
* ''Abriendo Caminos''/''Breaking Ground: Anthology of Puerto Rican Women Writers in New York'' 1980-2012 edited by Myrna Nieves.
* The
Latinx Poetry Project Paperback, edited by Davina Ferreira. (2020).
*
Floricanto Si!: A Collection of Latina Poetry edited by Bryce Milligan.
{{DEFAULTSORT:Latino Poetry
Poetry movements
American poetry